LIBRARY 

OK   THE 

University  of  California. 


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NATIONAL  AND    SOCIAL    PROBLEMS 


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THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
ATLANTA   •    SAN    FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL 
PROBLEMS 


BY 

FREDERIC   HARRISON 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

1908 

All  rights  reserved 


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V 


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GEiEBAL 


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Copyright,  1908, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  April,  1908. 


Norfaooli  JPregs 

J.  S.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


TO 

EDWARD   SPENCER   BEESLY 

AND 

JOHN   HENRY   BRIDGES 


IRH^^Oo 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION ix 


PART   I 
NATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ESSAY 

I.    BisMARCKisM  :  The  Policy  of  Blood  and  Iron        .  3 

II.    The  Duty  of  England 35 

III.  France  after  War .70 

IV.  LfioN  Gambetta 9S 

V.    The  Making  of  Italy 113 

Cavour 126 

Garibaldi 142 

VI.    Afghanistan 15^ 

VII.    The  Anti-Aggression  League 179. 

/     VIII.    Egypt 189 

IX.     The  Boer  War 219 

X.    The  State  of  Siege 223 

XI.     Empire  and  Humanity 237 

vii 


vm 


CONTENTS 


PART   II 


SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

ESSAY 

I.  The  Limits  of  Political  Economy 

II.  Trades-Unionism 

III.  Industrial  Co-operation 

IV.  Social  Remedies 
V.  Socialist  Unionism 

VI.    Moral  and  Religious  Socialism 


PAGE 
263 

366 
428 


J 


NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

The  essential  principle  of  modern  society  is  to  bring  all  politi- 
cal action  under  the  control  of  moral  duty.  —  Comte. 

INTRODUCTION 

This  book  —  being  an  appeal  to  international  morality 
and  a  plea  for  social  regeneration  —  develops  the  principles 
laid  down  in  two  preceding  works :  the  first,  on  religious 
belief;  the  second,  on  philosophic  thought. 

In  The  Creed  of  a  Layman  I  traced  the  growth  of  my  own 
convictions  from  a  theologic  to  a  scientific  Faith.  In  The 
Philosophy  of  Common  Sense  1  dealt  with  the  intellectual 
grounds  on  which  a  human  religion  must  be  based.  The 
natural  complement  of  these  treatises  is  to  show  this  system 
of  philosophic  religion  in  action.  Let  us  observe  its  prac- 
tical effect  in  moulding  opinion  on  the  great  questions  of 
Nations  and  of  Society :  on  patriotism,  international  justice, 
government ;  and  again,  on  problems  of  Wealth,  of  Labour, 
of  Socialism. 

Theology,  absorbed  in  matters  of  Worship  and  hopes  of 
Heaven,  has  no  call  to  meddle  with  earthly  politics,  to  offer 
counsel  to  secular  rulers,  or  to  propound  any  scheme  for  reor- 
ganising society.  Its  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world ;  and  it 
seldom  intrudes  on  worldly  affairs  without  adding  to  the  con- 
flicts and  the  perplexities  it  finds.  A  human  religion,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  bound  by  its  creed  to  preach  a  humane  standard 
in  politics,  to  work  for  a  new  earth,  if  it  cannot  promise  a  new 
heaven.     It  would  belie  its  name  and  betray  its  truth  if  its  first 

ix 


X  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

duty  were  not  to  show  how  the  world  of  to-day  might  be  made 
better,  how  a  happier  future  here  might  be  secured  for  our 
descendants;  how  international  strife  should  be  abated,  and 
class  wars  merged  in  a  moral  and  religious  socialism. 

Accordingly,  at  the  close  of  a  long  and  somewhat  active 
life,  —  a  life  entirely  detached  from  any  party  interest  or 
personal  ambition,  —  I  collect  and  re-edit  a  few  of  the  essays 
which  I  wrote  on  various  questions,  national  or  social.  The 
lightning  reviewer  may  perhaps  call  them  "ancient  history"; 
for  they  concern  periods  before  his  own  memory,  of  which 
he  seldom  reads  in  books.  But  these  topics  are  not  "ancient 
history"  except  so  far  as  they  deal  with  great  events,  whereof 
the  consequences  have  to  be  faced  still,  for  they  form  the 
burning  problems  of  statesmanship  in  our  own  generation. 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  reissue  studies  that  are  thirty,  even 
forty  years  old;  for  the  same  forces  are  still  dominant  and 
the  same  dilemmas  are  still  unsolved.  Vital  problems  con- 
cerning France,  Germany,  and  Italy,  our  own  problems  in 
Egypt,  South  Africa,  and  India,  are  as  much  alive  to-day  as 
they  were  in  the  sixties,  the  seventies,  or  the  eighties.  The 
errors,  adventures,  crimes  of  a  previous  generation  are  more 
in  evidence  than  ever,  grow  ever  more  perplexing  and  dan- 
gerous. 

The  party  politician  who  "has  put  his  money  on  the 
wrong  horse,"  the  journalist  on  the  eve  of  a  division  who  has 
had  to  defend  or  to  denounce  a  minister,  may  well  hesitate 
in  after  years  to  print  the  speech  he  made  or  the  article  he 
wrote  on  the  spur  of  the  moment. 

It  is  a  test  of  solid  principles,  whether  on  national  or  social 
questions,  that  they  are  not  evanescent  with  every  temporary 
crisis,  but  serve  to  explain  the  past  as  well  as  to  guide  the 
future.  The  lapse  of  a  generation  only  justifies  a  view  of 
events  which  had  behind  it  principles  and  convictions  main- 


INTRODUCTION  XI 

tained  throughout  a  long  life.  I  have  found  almost  nothing 
to  qualify  in  the  judgment  which  I  passed  at  the  time  on  the 
great  events  and  the  dominant  personalities  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

The  busy  politician  and  the  publicist  of  the  hour  is  con- 
cerned with  nothing  but  the  question  of  the  day;  and  he  is 
impatient  of  any  reminder  of  the  controversies  which  took 
place  when  he  was  at  school.  But  he  cannot  understand  the 
present  —  much  less  can  he  settle  its  difficulties  —  unless  he 
knows  their  origin  and  the  inheritance  of  evils  which  they 
bear.  The  occupation  of  Egypt,  the  series  of  wars  and  of 
adventures  this  involved,  remain  still  urgent  questions. 
This  goes  to  the  root  of  the  problem  of  Empire  and  its  con- 
sequences. So  do  the  long  series  of  wars,  annexations,  and 
troubles  in  South  Africa.  So,  too,  the  series  of  wars,  annexa- 
tions, imperial  difficulties  in  India.  I  am  well  aware  of  the 
vast  improvement  effected  in  the  material  and  administrative 
condition  of  Egypt.  I  do  justice  to  the  recent  efforts  made  to 
heal  the  South  African  imbroglio.  Nor  am  I  blind  to  the 
splendid  services  of  many  able  and  patriotic  men,  at  home 
and  abroad,  to  grapple  with  the  tremendous  tasks  that  India 
has  imposed  on  its  conquerors. 

All  this  is  plain ;  and  I  am  the  last  man  to  forget  it  or  to 
dispute  it.  But  I  see  that  the  real  dilemma  of  the  Egyptian 
problem  began  with  the  occupation  of  1882  :  —  or  rather 
long  before,  when  governments  became  entangled  in  the 
financial  and  administrative  enormities  of  the  Egyptian 
tyrants.  I  trace  the  chaos  and  desolation  of  South  Africa 
to  similar  follies  and  offences  of  imperialist  demagogues. 
The  blunders,  extravagances,  and  crimes  of  our  Afghan  ex- 
peditions have  been  often  repeated  since,  and  raise  the  whole 
question  of  Imperial  expansion  and  Imperial  domination. 
Empire,  alas!   is  not  "ancient  history."    It  is  the  insoluble 


Xll  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

ever-present  problem  of  to-day  in  all  our  national  affairs. 
And,  as  Empire  is  the  real  subject  of  the  first  Part  of  this 
book,  so  I  am  forced  to  illustrate  my  argument  by  referring 
to  past  events  in  Egypt,  South  Africa,  and  India  —  just  as 
I  begin  by  tracing  the  modern  race  after  Empire  to  the 
sinister  ambition  of  a  Napoleon,  a  Bismarck,  a  Beaconsfield. 

It  would  be  idle  to  consider  the  state  of  France  without 
tracing  it  to  the  evils  of  the  second  Empire,  to  consider  the 
state  of  modern  Europe  without  tracing  it  to  the  malign  genius 
of  Bismarck,  to  probe  the  evils  of  our  own  Imperial  craze 
without  ascribing  them  to  Disraeli  and  his  pupils.  A  sys- 
tematic analysis  of  Empire  is  bound  to  start  with  Bismarck, 
and  to  trace  back  our  present  difficulties  to  our  dealings  with 
South  Africa,  India,  and  Egypt. 

These  pages  were  all  in  type  when  the  very  important 
work  of  Lord  Cromer  appeared.  It  is  a  record  of  magnifi- 
cent success  in  Imperial  administration  and  of  patient  states- 
manship. But  it  reveals  to  a  thoughtful  reader  the  complex 
burdens  which  the  occupation  of  Egypt  laid  on  our  nation; 
nor  does  it  show  that,  in  twenty-five  years  of  prolonged  effort, 
these  burdens  have  been  abated ;  much  less  how  they  are  to 
be  closed  in  the  future. 

The  essays  in  this  book  all  deal  with  the  year  1882  — 
before  the  occupation  of  Egypt  began.  Why  was  that  occupa- 
tion a  necessity  to  England,  when  France  withdrew  from  it, 
and  even  sacrificed  her  great  statesman?  Why  was  it  nec- 
essary "to  crush  Arabi  and  his  party"?  Why  was  England 
to  involve  herself  in  international  dilemmas  to  enable  specu- 
lators to  secure  their  usurious  dividends?  The  entire  ad- 
venture of  bloodshed  and  oppression  falls  back  always  on 
"financial  interests." 

I  believe  that  these  papers  will  prove  useful  as  histori- 
cal documents.     They  are  the  record  of  revolutionary  and 


INTRODUCTION  Xlll 

national  upheavals  in  the  light  they  appeared  to  a  contem- 
porary observer,  who  was  also  an  eye-witness  of  tremendous 
events  and  in  personal  touch  with  some  of  the  chief  actors 
therein.  Many  politicians  and  most  publicists  are  without 
any  long  memory  of  events  and  persons.  They  know  little 
of  what  was  stirring  the  world  a  generation  or  two  ago,  when 
they  were  at  school.  History  they  know  from  books.  But 
of  that  intermediate  period,  a  generation  or  two  ago,  they 
know  little  either  from  literature,  or  from  memory,  or  from 
tradition.  And  yet  the  things  which  so  keenly  moved  their 
own  fathers  are  the  problems  and  dilemmas  which  are  left 
to  them  unsolved. 

All  this  remains  to  them  a  blurred  and  often  a  distorted 
sketch.  I  invite  them  now  to  look  at  a  few  pictures  painted 
at  the  time  —  in  rather  warm  tones  and  in  sharp  contrasts 
of  light  and  shade,  it  may  be,  but  pictures  which  truly  por- 
trayed the  alarms,  the  passions,  the  hopes,  the  enthusiasms 
of  the  hour. 

Nor  do  I  think  these  papers,  old  as  many  of  them  are,  will 
be  found  by  any  serious  reader  to  be  stale  reprints.  Many 
of  them  were  pamphlets  and  manifestos  issued  by  special 
societies,  or  circulated  in  quarters  wholly  unknown  to  the 
public  of  to-day.  The  essays  which  appeared  in  periodicals 
were  published  so  long  ago  that  the  present  generation  never 
saw  them  nor  heard  of  their  existence.  Practically  the  whole 
of  this  book  is  new  matter ;  and  I  should  be  surprised  if  the 
reader  should  find  any  part  of  it  familiar  to  him.  It  may 
astonish  him  to  notice  opinions  of  mine  for  which  he  may  not 
have  been  prepared  to  give  me  credit. 

I  am  neither  a  party  politician  nor  a  doctrinaire  dogmatist. 
I  profess  myself  bound  by  no  man's  dicta  nor  by  any  party 
watchwords.  Trained  in  the  general  principles  of  Positivist 
sociology,  I  am  ready  to  accept  the  opportunist  aims  of  prac- 


XIV  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

tical  Statesmen,  when  not  in  open  conflict  with  moral  prin- 
ciple. I  have  learned  much  in  politics  from  Carlyle,  Francis 
Newman,  Bagehot,  Michelet,  Mazzini,  Peel,  John  Bright, 
John  Morley,  Gladstone;  and  in  economics  from  Mill, 
Cobden,  Spencer,  Ruskin,  Henry  George,  and  William 
Morris;  but  I  profess  myself  bound  by  no  man's  school. 
Nor  can  I  accept  the  current  labels  which  it  is  the  fashion 
to  assume  as  party  badges  or  to  bandy  about  as  party  nick- 
names. 

A  Republican  by  conviction  in  the  abstract,  I  am  the 
reverse  of  a  hidebound  Democrat.  With  a  deep  loathing 
for  mere  militarism,  I  could  never  join  any  kind  of  Peace 
Society.  Ardent  patriot  as  I  am,  I  repudiate  the  tinsel  im- 
perialism of  blatant  demagogues.  With  a  hatred  of  all 
forms  of  race  oppression,  I  stand  clear  of  the  quixotic 
humanitarianism  which  clamours  to  rush  into  every  case  of 
national  wrong-doing.  I  cannot  call  myself  Radical,  Whig, 
or  Tory ;  nor  do  I  find  such  essential  differences  in  the  acts 
of  any  one  of  the  recognised  parties  in  the  state.  I  have 
sometimes  been  called  a  Conservative  revolutionist;  but  I 
must  give  my  own  interpretation  to  any  such  term  before  I 
could  accept  it. 

Nor  on  the  social  problems  could  I  accept  any  one  of  the 
familiar  labels.  I  am  no  Plutonomist,  no  Individualist,  no 
stickler  for  rights  of  Property  and  personal  freedom  from 
state  interference.  If  a  Socialist  is  one  who  looks  forward 
to  a  reorganisation  of  society  in  the  interest  of  the  masses  — 
what  Comte  calls  "the  incorporation  of  the  proletariat  into 
the  social  organism"  —  one  who  fervently  desires  such  an 
end  and  labours  to  bring  it  about  —  then  I  am  so  far  a  So- 
cialist. If  socialism  means  the  abolition  of  personal  appro- 
priation of  capital  by  force  of  law,  then  I  look  on  such  a 
dream  as  the  era  of  social  chaos,  and  moral  and  material  ruin. 


INTRODUCTION  XV 

If  this  seems  to  be  a  paradox,  I  hold  it  to  be  reconciled  by 
the  combination  of  Comte's  two  correlative  laws. 

(i)    Wealth  is  the  product  of  society,  and  must  be  devoted  to 
the  interest  of  the  social  whole. 

(2)   Moral  evils  can  be  cured  only  by  moral,  and  not  by 
material  agencies. 

This  book,  then,  must  be  taken  as  a  whole,  and  as  a  con- 
tinuation of  my  previous  works  on  religion  and  on  philosophy. 
It  is  the  mature  and  systematic  belief  of  one  who  has  taken 
the  keenest  interest  in  the  political  and  social  problems  of 
the  last  fifty  years,  from  no  party  or  sectarian  point  of  view, 
but  with  profound  conviction  in  a  general  philosophy  of 
society  under  the  inspiration  of  a  human  religion.  The  key 
of  all  national  and  social  problems  lies  in  a  human,  moral, 
and  scientific  Creed.  Their  solution  must  justify  the  truth 
of  that  philosophy  and  the  regenerating  power  of  that  faith. 


XVI  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 


PART  I 

The  book,  as  the  title  indicates,  is  divided  into  two  sections, 
distinct  akhough  in  mutual  reaction.  The  first  Part  deals 
with  international  problems,  war,  and  imperialism.  It 
inevitably  opens  with  a  criticism  of  German  militarism  and 
imperialism,  begun  more  than  forty  years  ago  by  the  power- 
ful statesman  who,  in  two  generations,  has  so  deeply  trans- 
formed the  German  people  and  so  potently  recast  the  politics 
of  Europe.  Modern  imperialism  and  the  militarising  of 
nations  dates  from  the  accession  of  Prince  Bismarck  to 
power  in  1862 ;  and,  as  he  was  the  founder,  so  he  is  to  East 
and  West,  from  Japan  to  the  United  States,  the  great  exem- 
plar of  Imperial  expansion  and  the  nation  in  arms. 

That  is  the  key,  the  crux,  the  type  of  all  the  inmost  prob- 
lems of  our  age.  All  serious  political  studies  must  start  from 
the  central  movement  of  all  —  German  militarism  —  which 
the  Kaiser  and  his  statesmen  regard  as  a  precious  inheritance 
from  the  mighty  founder  of  their  Empire.  Prince  Biilow 
said  in  the  Prussian  House  of  Lords  in  a  most  memorable 
speech  (February  26,  1908)  —  "the  successors  of  Prince 
Bismarck  owe  it  to  the  great  Chancellor  to  continue  the 
policy  which  they  had  inherited  from  him."  There  is  the 
centre  of  European  disturbance. 

Thirty-eight  years  ago  I  warned  our  people  and  ministers 
that  the  Bismarckian  triumph  implied  an  entire  recasting  of 
international  relations,  and  an  era  of  military  imperialism. 
I  even  pointed  out  as  an  inevitable  consequence  of  this,  the 
Pan- German  ambition  to  found  a  new  sea-power  and  to  dis- 
pute with  us  our  supremacy  at  sea.  I  do  not  pretend  to 
discuss  questions  of  fleets  and  of  armaments ;  and  I  join  in 
no  scare  about  our  maritime  defences  or  in  promoting  the 


INTRODUCTION  XVll 

race  to  build  rival  Dreadnoughts.  But  I  hold  no  one  fit  to 
argue  any  political  problem  who  fails  to  see  that  the  rulers 
and  the  people  of  Germany  are  bent  on  being  able  to  meet 
Great  Britain  at  sea  on  equal  terms  —  not  immediately,  but 
within  a  decade  or  two  of  years  at  most. 

This  is  an  inevitable  issue  for  German  ascendancy :  from 
the  point  of  view  of  German  patriotism,  a  perfectly  legitimate 
ambition.  But  the  case  of  our  two  nations  is  not  parallel. 
To  Germany,  with  a  small  and  most  defensible  coast  but  no 
colonies,  a  great  fleet  is  a  costly  luxury,  which  can  be  used 
only  for  offence.  To  Britain,  with  its  possessions  scattered 
over  the  globe,  its  food  and  prosperity  depending  on  trans- 
marine trade,  a  mighty  fleet  —  even  a  predominant  fleet  — 
is  a  necessity  of  existence  as  a  nation  whilst  we  hold  a  dis- 
persed Empire.  Our  unwieldy  Empire  is  bound  up  with 
our  naval  supremacy.  Ruin  that  and  you  ruin  their  Empire 
is  the  deep  conviction  of  German  patriotism:  and  a  very 
natural  ambition  it  is. 

It  is  not  enough  to  be  assured  that  the  British  fleet  is  equal 
to  that  of  three  Powers,  and  overmatches  that  of  Germany 
three  or  four  times  over.  To-day  that  is  true.  But  ten  or 
twenty  years  hence  things  will  be  changed  indeed.  The 
whole  German  fleet  is,  or  may  be,  concentrated  in  one  of  the 
most  defensible  positions  in  Europe  —  the  mouth  of  the 
Elbe  and  the  south  coast  of  the  Baltic  —  if  not  the  mouths 
of  the  Rhine  and  the  Scheldt.  One-half  —  possibly  two- 
thirds —  of  the  British  fleet  must  be  elsewhere  in  East  or 
West  when  there  is  prospect  of  a  great  war.  Who  can 
guarantee  that,  in  the  year  1920,  a  German  fleet,  concen- 
trated in  the  Baltic  and  the  German  Ocean,  and  possibly 
with  an  ally,  may  not  be  able  to  overpower  that  portion  of 
the  British  fleet  which  can  be  safely  withdrawn  from  guard- 
ing the  Empire  and  protecting  our  supplies  of  food  ? 


XVm  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

To  work  for  that  grand  achievement  in  the  future  is  the 
inheritance  of  Bismarck  to  modern  Germany  —  to  modern 
Europe.  Bismarckian  imperiahsm,  which  his  successors 
acknowledge  as  a  duty,  implies  the  attempt.  Not  to-day  — 
not  to-morrow  —  not  perhaps  alone  —  and  certainly  not 
whilst  Germany  is  isolated  —  isolated  as  a  result  of  Bis- 
marckism  —  and  whilst  Britain  is  rich  in  alliances  and 
ententes.  But  alliances  come  and  go  like  sunshine  and 
storm-clouds.  And  our  children  may  live  to  see  black  tem- 
pests gathering  up  in  East  and  West,  and  the  scattered  Em- 
pire threatened  within  and  without  from  many  sides  at  once. 
Then  will  be  the  hour  to  challenge  the  naval  supremacy  of 
Britain. 

For  these  reasons,  the  key  of  international  problems  lies 
in  the  organisation,  the  power,  the  ambition  of  German 
imperiahsm.  And  a  serious  study  of  European  complica- 
tions must  start  from  that  which  I  treat  in  the  first  essay  — 
the  Bismarckism  which  is  what  it  was  more  than  forty  years 
ago  —  the  menace  and  the  trouble  of  European  peace  and 
progress :  —  a  far  greater  menace  to  the  very  existence  of 
our  country  than  it  was  when  Whig  statesmen  with  tran- 
quillity saw  France  overwhelmed  in  1870. 

It  is  idle  to  repeat  to  us  that  neither  Germany  nor  any 
European  Power  has  the  least  idea  of  attacking  our  country 
—  now,  or  within  the  next  five,  it  may  be  the  next  ten, 
years.  Nor  could  Germany  or  any  other  Power  dream  of 
success,  if  they  did.  But  politics  are  not  a  matter  of  to-day, 
nor  of  to-morrow  —  but  of  hereafter.  When  Kaiser  Wilhelm 
started  his  naval  programme  on  January  i,  1900,  he  said  :  — 
"/  shall  reorganise  my  navy,  so  that  it  shall  stand  on  the  same 
level  as  my  army,  and  with  its  help  the  German  Empire  shall 
attain  to  a  place  which  it  has  not  yet  reached. ^^  When  those 
words  were  spoken  the  German  army  was    acknowledged 


INTRODUCTION  XIX 

to  hold  a  supremacy  in  Europe.  When  the  Kaiser's  very 
natural,  wholly  patriotic,  ambition  is  realised,  and  his  navy 
has  the  same  level  of  predominance  as  his  army,  the  very 
existence  of  the  British  Empire  will  await  his  signal  to  break 
it  up,  and  the  independence  of  Britain  will  hang  on  the  re- 
sources of  our  home  defence. 

Need  I  say  that  no  man  has  a  deeper  admiration  for  the 
intellectual  eminence  of  the  German  people,  their  great  quali- 
ties, and  their  splendid  achievements  in  science,  in  art,  in 
literature,  in  municipal  government  —  I  will  even  add  in  mili- 
tary organisation  and  training  ?  I  know  Germany  from  end 
to  end.  I  have  lived  in  Germany  for  long  spells  at  different 
periods.  I  have  watched  her  wonderful  growth  in  many 
visits,  from  185 1  to  the  present  time.  I  have  German  friends, 
and  have  the  heartiest  sympathy  with  all  that  is  noble,  intel- 
lectual, sociable  in  the  German  heart  and  the  homes  of  the 
Fatherland.  By  education,  by  sympathy,  by  personal  tastes, 
I  am  a  strong  pro- German  still.  But  I  cannot  shut  my  eyes 
to  the  inner  meaning  of  the  Imperial  autocracy. 

With  the  efforts  of  the  day  to  secure  an  entente  between 
our  countries  I  can  heartily  join.  By  all  means  let  us  en- 
courage good  feeling  between  the  two  great  types  of  the 
Teutonic  race.  Blood  is  thicker  than  water;  and  every 
Teuton  feels  the  kinship  in  spite  of  political  differences  or 
rivalries.  But  the  exuberant  good-fellowship  of  journalists 
and  savants  is  a  passing  mood  —  an  artificial,  shallow,  and 
on  one  side  a  purely  official  movement.  It  has  nothing  to 
do  with  serious  politics,  with  international  policy,  with  the 
future  of  Britain  or  of  Europe.  Let  us  all  cheer  the  genial 
and  ubiquitous  Kaiser.  Let  us  embrace  the  savant,  the 
artist,  the  poet  of  the  Fatherland.  But  let  us  keep  our 
powder  dry  —  and  study  the  birth,  the  growth,  and  the  future 
of  Bismarckism. 


XX  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

Do  I  by  this  encourage  any  imitation  of  militarism ;  am  I 
justifying  imperialism  for  ourselves;  am  I  playing  into  the 
hands  of  the  Union  Jack  enthusiasts  ?  Humanity  forbid ! 
My  whole  purpose  is  to  point  out  the  dangers,  the  evils,  the 
tremendous  responsibilities  with  which  the  Empire  burdens 
our  people  and  our  generation.  This  monstrous,  abnormal, 
polyglot,  incoherent  Empire  is  our  white  man's  burden  — 
our  statesmen's  dilemma,  our  cancer,  and  our  curse.  In  the 
last  essay  of  the  first  Part  I  explain  what  this  means ;  and  I 
show  the  grounds  of  political  foresight,  of  moral  principle, 
of  religious  feeling,  wherein  this  conviction  is  based. 

My  memory,  which  goes  back  over  the  whole  reign  of  the 
late  Queen,  forces  on  my  mind  the  momentous  change  which 
during  that  period  came  over  our  country.  From  the  time 
of  Waterloo,  and  for  a  generation  after  it,  England  was  fore- 
most amongst  the  great  Powers  of  Europe.  At  the  opening 
of  the  twentieth  century  England  was  swallowed  up  in  Em- 
pire. From  being  the  dominant  nation  in  the  state-system 
of  Europe,  it  was  translated  into  a  nondescript  world-power. 
From  a  solid  impregnable  island,  it  had  become  an  aggre- 
gate of  unstable  and  disparate  fragments.  England-plus- 
her-colonies had  ceased  as  a  homogeneous  state.  We  are 
now  an  Asiatic,  African,  American,  Australasian  hybrid. 
As  an  Englishman,  I  view  with  shame  the  effacement  of  Old 
England.  As  a  patriot,  I  foresee  the  calamities  in  which  its 
inevitable  dissolution  may  involve  us.  As  a  reformer,  I 
deplore  the  wasted  opportunities,  the  protracted  misrule,  the 
social  chaos  it  inflicts. 

I  am  no  "little  Englander."  I  am  an  Englishman  of  the 
English,  with  British,  Welsh,  and  Irish  ancestors.  And, 
for  one,  I  am  intensely  proud  of  England  with  its  thousand 
years  of  glorious  traditions,  down  from  the  incomparable 
Alfred  —  the  England  which  they  now  have  smothered  in 


INTRODUCTION  XXI 

cosmopolitan  dependencies.  I  belong  to  a  political  school 
intensely  patriotic,  for  on  the  walls  of  Newton  Hall  we  in- 
scribed as  a  sacred  watchword  the  name  of  "Country."  To 
those  who  taunt  us  with  "the  craven  fear  of  being  great,"  we 
retort  with  the  finger  of  scorn  at  the  low-bred  pride  of  being 
big. 

It  is  not  merely  the  sinking  of  heart  I  feel  when  I  find  our 
ancient  England  besmirched  into  a  mongrel  Empire,  when 
I  listen  to  the  blasphemous  swagger  of  the  imperialism  of 
the  canteen,  when  I  think  of  all  the  waste  in  wealth,  force, 
good  men,  engulfed  in  precarious  adventures  over  the  globe : 
—  it  is  not  merely  a  matter  of  degraded  feeling  and  demoral- 
ised policy  that  stirs  me.  It  is  the  bitter  conviction  that  this 
parvenu  Empire  is  doomed  to  early  dissolution  —  is  incapable 
of  being  made  permanent  or  stable  —  and  in  the  meantime 
is  turning  our  political  progress  backwards,  and  may  pos- 
sibly lead  us  down  into  cruel  ruin. 

Nothing  can  ever  make  a  nation  out  of  a  congeries  of  prov- 
inces, with  every  skin,  creed,  and  type  of  man  to  be  found  on 
earth.  And  nothing  can  ever  make  the  red  patches  tossed 
over  the  map  of  the  planet  a  coherent  state  or  even  a  colossal 
Empire.  It  is  not  a  colossal  Empire,  but  a  patchwork  bundle 
of  conquests  —  not  even  strung  together  with  a  common  civil 
and  military  system,  but  detached  and  as  far  apart  as  North 
Pole  from  South  Pole,  as  Central  Africa  from  the  Pacific. 

Common  sense  tells  us  that  units  so  heterogeneous  and 
isolated  can  be  held  only  by  a  nation  which  is  "mistress  of 
the  seas"  —  i.e.  by  a  people  whose  navy  can  overpower  two 
or  three  navies  combined.  For  the  moment  that  is  the  case. 
We  have  hitherto  had  but  two  possible  rivals.  We  are  now 
about  to  have  two,  if  not  three,  more.  Is  the  British  navy 
for  all  time  prepared  to  meet  at  once  five  or  six  nations  at 
sea?    I  trow  not. 


XXU  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

It  is  true  that  at  present  there  is  no  danger  of  any  such 
combination,  nor  of  any  combination  that  Britain  need  fear. 
But  who  can  predict  the  possible  combinations  of  the  next 
twenty  years  —  even  of  ten  years  ?  Now,  it  is  the  inevitable 
effect  of  warlike  supremacy  by  any  one  power  to  provoke  an 
irrepressible  rivalry  to  challenge  it.  Modern  civilisation  will 
not  tolerate  the  hegemony  of  any  one  Power.  All  the  jeal- 
ousies, all  the  alarms,  all  the  evils  bred  by  the  modern  hege- 
mony of  the  new  Bismarckian  Empire  are  being  slowly  but 
inevitably  nursed  against  the  maritime  hegemony  of  Britain. 
It  is  childish  to  brag  about  overcoming  this  rivalry  by  sheer 
force;  as  if  we  could  go  on  launching  fifty  Dreadnoughts, 
and  could  indefinitely  maintain  a  "three-power  standard," 
when  the  day  comes  that  Germany  and  the  United  States, 
if  not  the  yellow  races,  and  the  Muscovite  races,  have  each 
developed  a  sea-power  equal  to  our  own  to-day. 

It  is  quite  true  —  and  I  have  just  argued  this  very  point  — 
that  supremacy  at  sea  is  necessary  to  our  actual  safety  in 
our  own  shores  at  home,  because  with  a  home  army  of  but 
100,000  regulars  at  most,  we  could  not  sleep  in  peace  within 
a  few  hours  of  the  Continental  millions  were  it  not  for  our 
invincible  fleet.  But  that  is  no  answer  to  our  rivals.  They 
say,  "We  have  each  of  us  to  protect  our  own  countries,  and 
you  might  protect  yours  if  you  did  not  aim  at  being  the  pre- 
dominant world-power.  And  we  will  tolerate  no  longer  any 
predominant  world-power." 

The  entire  balance  of  power  —  the  whole  European  state 
system  —  has  been  entirely  revolutionised  during  the  reign 
of  the  late  Queen.  It  is  a  material,  intellectual,  and  moral 
change  that  has  come  over  our  kingdom.  The  home  in- 
terests of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  have  become 
secondary.  Cosmopolitan  adventures,  interests,  ideals,  have 
become    primary.        Napoleon    III.,    Bismarck,    Disraeli, 


INTRODUCTION  Xxiii 

founded  empires  —  of  which  one  is  extinct  and  the  others 
are  less  than  forty  years  old.  Of  all  empires  on  earth,  or 
even  recorded  in  history,  the  British  Empire,  the  youngest 
of  all,  is  the  most  disjointed,  incoherent,  and  disparate  ever 
devised  by  man.  All  races,  every  skin,  religion,  manners, 
language,  climate,  ideal,  people  it,  —  Negroes,  Hottentots, 
Kaffirs,  Arabs,  Malays,  Chinese,  Hindoos,  Greeks,  Italians, 
Spaniards,  Dutch,  French,  —  with  their  own  languages, 
history,  and  law.  The  Court  of  Appeal  administers  thirty- 
two  different  legal  systems  or  codes.  All  religions  exist  in  it 
from  Ultramontane  Catholicism  to  the  worst  Negro-Fetichism 
—  if  not  Devil-worship  and  cannibalism,  or  human  sacrifices. 
All  languages  are  spoken,  from  the  tongue  of  Shakespeare  to 
the  gibbering  of  Bushmen. 

Is  citizenship  possible  in  such  a  horde?  Is  patriotism 
conceivable?  Is  settled  government  practicable?  Can  a 
crowd  of  scattered  conquests  be  welded  into  a  permanent 
state  ?  Are  these  three  hundred  and  fifty  millions  our  fellow- 
citizens?  Can  a  restless  and  divided  democracy  look  to 
hold  them  down  together  for  ever  as  mere  alien  tributaries? 
This  kingdom  has  a  history  of  one  thousand  years  —  the 
conquered  dependencies  hardly  more  than  a  century.  On 
how  many  years  more  can  we  venture  to  count  ?  —  now 
that  dominion  has  been  substituted  for  citizenship  —  now 
that  in  place  of  a  loyal  union  of  free  citizens  we  have  a  string 
of  huge  provinces  held  to  tribute  by  armies  shipped  out  and 
back  in  relays? 

And  the  ballads  they  bawl  out  in  the  canteen  tell  us  how 
"big"  it  is  !  Is  a  man  who  weighs  twenty-four  stone  a  better 
man  in  private  life  than  one  of  twelve?  Is  Russia,  which 
reaches  in  a  straight  line  for  some  5000  miles,  a  match  for 
an  island  of  500  miles  ?  Is  a  man  whose  income  is  five  mill- 
ions a  year  as  happy  as  one  who  lives  on  five  thousand  ?    Of 


XXIV 


NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 


all  the  coarse  crazes  of  this  age  of  "bounders,"  the  pride  in 
a  "big"  Empire  is  the  worst  invention  of  our  cheap-jack 
literature.  When  Xerxes  led  his  millions  to  Salamis,  when 
Philip  II.  blessed  his  Armada,  when  Napoleon  set  forth  to 
Moscow,  their  empires  looked  mighty  till  they  ended  in 
ignominy  and  ruin. 

It  is  an  inheritance  of  evil  omen  —  a  damnosa  hereditas  — 
incapable  of  being  permanently  held  or  yet  of  being  suddenly 
quitted  —  rather  a  tremendous  task  to  be  gradually,  fear- 
lessly, wisely  faced  and  reduced  in  time.  To  go  on  blindly 
increasing  it,  or  maintaining  it  unchanged  and  unreformed, 
is  the  road  to  national  ruin.  Too  long  has  Empire  torn 
away  our  thoughts  from  all  the  evils  and  sufferings  we  have 
at  home,  from  sympathy  with  all  that  is  best  and  most  pro- 
gressive in  our  European  neighbours,  from  ideals  of  a  civili- 
sation of  peace  and  reform.  It  has  plunged  us  into  many  a 
miserable  war,  and  burdened  us  with  a  load  of  cruel  and 
needless  debt.  Imperial  pride  is  a  sordid  exchange  for 
national  patriotism.  The  imperial  ideal  is  the  vulgarising 
of  our  social  life,  the  stifling  of  our  national  development, 
and  the  distortion  of  our  political  energy.  Whilst  we  are 
pretending  to  Christianise  the  barbarous  East  and  the  South, 
we  are  leaving  moral  and  social  barbarism  to  breed  at  home. 
To  add  ever  new  provinces  to  the  red  map  of  Empire  is  to  pile 
fresh  burdens  and  dangers  on  these  islands  of  our  forefathers. 
To  find  careers  for  a  hundred  thousand  well-born  youths  is 
to  close  our  ears  to  the  just  demands  of  the  forty  millions 
we  neglect. 


INTRODUCTION  XXV 


PART   II 

Just  as  the  tremendous  responsibilities  of  our  amorphous 
Empire  are  the  crux  of  our  National  Problems,  so  the  up- 
heaval of  the  Industrial  order  is  the  most  urgent  of  our  Social 
Problems.  It  is  a  question  wherein,  for  some  forty  years, 
I  have  had  a  keen  interest  and  have  taken  some  slight  part. 
For  sixty  years  at  least  the  claims  of  Labour  to  have  a  larger 
share  in  the  control  of  the  state  and  in  the  proceeds  of  their 
toil  have  been  continually  shaking  the  world  of  politics  and 
also  of  economics.  And  now  both  worlds  are  confronted 
with  the  far-reaching,  indeterminate,  elusive  social  revolution 
known  as  socialism. 

With  the  deep  and  ever-growing  uprising  of  all  civilised 
workmen  —  and  indeed  of  all  men  of  clear  thought  and 
generous  feeling  —  against  the  injustice  and  the  abomina- 
tions rife  in  our  industrial  system,  I  have  been  through  life 
in  complete  sympathy.  And  in  the  attacks  upon  our  vicious 
economic  world  I  find  little  to  dispute  —  be  these  in  the  criti- 
cal side  of  books  by  Henry  George,  Karl  Marx,  the  Fabians, 
or  the  Social  Democrats.  I  wholly  and  ardently  agree  with 
them  that  this  earth  will  not  be  a  home  worthy  of  civilised 
man  until  there  has  been  a  root-and-branch  social  revolution 
to  reform  the  daily  lot  of  the  vast  working  majority  of  our 
fellow-citizens. 

But  when  we  pass  to  their  reconstructive  schemes  I  can  see 
little  but  sophisms  and  passionate  dogmatism  in  the  random 
crudities  which  pass  as  socialism.  These  vague  Utopias 
swallow  up  each  other;  and  if  applied  in  practice  would 
swallow  up  society  and  civilisation  together. 

There  are  eight  main  grounds  whereon  the  shifting  phan- 
tasmagoria called  socialism  would  be  disastrous  and  futile  :  — 


XXVI 


NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 


(i)  Social  regeneration  could  only  be  sound  and  lasting  if  it 
took  account  of  all  the  sides  of  man's  social  life  —  in- 
tellectual, moral,  domestic,  artistic,  and  religious. 

(2)  A  panacea  of  society  which  took  account  of  nothing  but 

.  Labour  could  be  nothing  but  a  sordid  kind  of  materi- 
alism. 

(3)  Modern  Industry  could  not  be  maintained  —  much  less 

developed  —  without  rare  individual  genius  and  no 
less  rare  personal  energy. 

(4)  Such  special  genius  and  rare  energy  can  only  be  secured 

by  personal  freedom  and  the  untrammelled  initiative 
of  gifted  individuals. 

(5)  To  suppose  that  industrial  genius  and  personal  energy 

can  be  hired  by  the  mass  of  the  manual  labourers  is 
an  ignorant  delusion. 

(6)  Democratic  government  is  at  best  a  poor  makeshift  for 

ruling  the  state ;  to  apply  it  to  Industry  could  end  in 
nothing  but  material  ruin. 

(7)  The  personal  control  of  capital  is  not  only  the  very  con- 

dition indispensable  to  Literature,  Art,  to  all  Improve- 
ment, physical,  moral,  and  aesthetic,  but  it  is  also  the 
essential  field  of  some  of  man's  noblest  and  most 
generous  qualities. 

(8)  To  subject  industrial  life  as  a  whole  to  the  democratic 

rule  of  the  manual  workers  would  be  a  tyranny  which 
would  crush  improvement,  art,  thought,  and  freedom, 
and  would  speedily  bring  this  island  first  to  collapse, 
then  to  starvation,  and  ultimately  to  subjection  to  a 
foreign  conqueror. 


(i)  In  the  essay  on  The  Limits  of  Political  Economy  I 
sought  to  expose  the  essential  narrowness  of  the  orthodox 
Plutonomy  in  fashion  in  the  fifties  and  the  sixties  by  show- 


INTRODUCTION  XXvii 

ing  that  the  pretended  science  was  usually  hypothetical 
reasoning  from  quite  narrow  data.  I  believe  the  essay  to 
be  one  of  the  earliest  systematic  attempts  to  shake  the  mis- 
chievous fallacies  of  the  orthodox  economists.  The  "dis- 
mal science"  has  now  lost  its  vogue;  but  I  reissue  my  criti- 
cism of  its  hollow  dogmatism  because  most  of  the  argument 
applies  mutatis  mutandis  to  the  current  fallacies  of  socialism. 
The  "orthodox"  economists  of  a  former  generation  con- 
structed a  spurious  code  of  industrial  axioms  on  the  cynical 
assumption  that  all  men  acted  on  the  instigation  of  their 
material  interests. 

The  socialism  of  to-day,  however  much  its  advocates  differ 
in  method,  starts  with  a  similar  false  assumption,  viz.  that 
all  the  men  should  be  forced  to  live  in  the  ways  their  neigh- 
bours shall  direct  as  most  useful  to  the  convenience  of  the 
masses.  This  cognate  fallacy  has  no  immoral  basis,  it  is 
true.  It  even  exaggerates  an  eminently  social  desire.  But, 
as  it  rests  on  the  crude  doctrine  of  material  democracy,  and 
neglects  all  the  nobler  sides  of  social  life,  it  would  result  in 
paralysing  society  and  in  the  end  bring  about  an  industrial 
chaos. 

In  the  first  essay  of  Part  II.  I  have  analysed  the  human 
motives  and  ideals  of  life  which  Plutonomy  neglected  as  use- 
less and  inoperative  in  social  life.  Almost  every  word  of 
that  argument  may  be  applied  to  most  of  the  current  types 
of  socialism  which  have  nothing  to  say  or  to  teach  about  all 
the  nobler  and  purer  forms  of  human  energy,  which  destine 
society  to  the  mechanical  task  of  working  up  raw  materials, 
and  satisfying  the  common  bodily  wants  of  mankind.  Loose 
generalities  which  some  Socialists  fling,  as  crumbs  from  the 
laden  tables  of  Labour,  to  Art,  Philosophy,  Religion,  moral 
and  scientific  Education  —  to  all  that  makes  up  complex 
civilisation  —  these  empty  phrases  count  for  nothing  in  their 


XXVlll 


NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 


reorganise 


Utopias.  A  true  and  sincere  socialism  must 
Society  from  top  to  bottom  in  all  the  manifold  and  subtle 
phases  of  man's  social  life,  as  ever  was  seen  in  the  varied 
Past  or  as  ever  is  imagined  in  the  Time  to  come. 

(2)  That  miners,  spinners,  and  masons  should  be  fasci- 
nated by  such  childish  sophisms  as  that  "all  wealth  is  pro- 
duced by  the  manual  workers";  "that  the  entire  product 
of  Labour  should  be  handed  over  day  by  day  to  the  labour- 
ers"; "that  wealth  is  criminal  in  itself" — that  such  non- 
sense should  be  listened  to  eagerly  by  men  bowed  down  by 
the  cruel  conditions  of  modern  toil,  is  not  so  strange.  But 
that  men  who  pretend  to  speak  with  culture  of  mind  and 
authority  to  teach  should  preach  such  wild  stuff  is  a  sign  of 
the  mental  chaos  of  our  age  in  the  break-up  of  all  systematic 
convictions. 

The  whole  of  the  second  Part,  and  especially  the  essays  on 
Co-operation,  on  Social  Remedies,  and  the  last,  on  Aloral 
and  Religious  Socialism,  discuss  these  fallacies.  Manual 
Labour,  left  to  itself,  could  produce  nothing;  and,  but  for 
scientific  leading  and  the  resources  of  Capital,  would  only 
waste  its  labour  and  destroy  good  material.  If  the  whole 
product  of  Labour  were  paid  out  to  the  labourers  there 
would  be  no  accumulation,  no  capital  to  start  fresh  work,  and 
soon  no  means  of  working  at  all.  "Wealth"  is  no  more  a 
crime  than  Labour;  for  human  society  can  only  exist  by  the 
co-operation  of  both. 

(3)  The  crudest  of  the  fallacies  which  mislead  unfortu- 
nate toilers  for  wage  is  the  dream  that  great  industries  could 
be  managed  by  popular  elections,  committees,  and  officials 
chosen  by  the  votes  of  the  mass.  A  great  factory,  a  railway, 
a  bank,  could  no  more  be  run  in  such  ways  than  Raphael's 
Transfiguration  could  be  produced  by  a  gang  of  house- 
painters,  or  Hamlet  have  been  composed  by  the  printers  of 


INTRODUCTION  XXIX 

The  Times.  All  industry  rests  on  individual  concentration, 
personal  genius,  stores  of  accumulation,  and  then  on  mas- 
terly rapidity  in  action.  Napoleon's  victories  "were  won  by 
half-an-hour."  Industrial  victories  —  even  industrial  suc- 
cess —  are  likewise  the  prize  of  rapidity,  secrecy,  inspira- 
tion, command  of  large  reserved  capital  —  and  above  all  of 
freedom.  Battles  are  not  w^on  by  councils  of  war  —  much 
less  by  the  shouts  of  whole  battalions  of  Tommy  Atkinses. 

All  this  has  been  elaborately  worked  out  in  the  essays  of 
Part  II.  on  Co-operation  and  Social  Remedies,  and  need  not 
be  discussed  any  further.  I  merely  now  state  my  conviction 
that  the  Marxian  scheme  of  economic  revolution,  rigidly 
enforced  in  Europe,  could  result  in  nothing  but  such  desola- 
tion as  fell  on  it  when  the  Roman  Empire  was  broken  up  by 
the  Northern  tribes.  And,  if  enforced  in  our  own  country, 
would  end  in  a  few  months  in  general  starvation,  owing  to 
the  stoppage  of  our  foreign  food-supplies,  through  the  de- 
struction of  credit,  of  mercantile  skill,  and  of  efficient  manage- 
ment of  the  material  necessities  of  Hfe. 

(4)-(8)  The  other  inevitable  results  of  real  socialism  are 
discussed  in  the  second  Part  of  this  book;  and  in  the  essays 
on  Social  Remedies,  in  particular,  some  evidence  is  given  of 
the  incalculable  services  to  society  which  large  capitals  con- 
tinually afford,  but  which  could  not  be  replaced  by  any  ad- 
ministrative or  democratic  machinery.  If  Democracy  ever 
did  get  into  its  hands  the  collective  Capital  of  the  community, 
it  would  soon  prove  itself  to  be  the  most  close-fisted,  cruel, 
and  grasping  Capitalist  of  all. 

This  book  does  not  undertake  to  expound  in  detail  the 
social  reorganisation  which  it  would  substitute  for  the  exist- 
ing economic  tyranny.  This  is  sketched  in  the  leading  ideas 
to  be  found  in  the  concluding  essay  on  Moral  and  Religious 
Socialism.     It  is,  in  fact,  the  subject  of  the  whole  of  the 


XXX  INTRODUCTION 

volumes  of  which  this  book  is  the  continuation,  as  it  is  indeed 
the  real  subject  of  almost  everything  I  have  written  since  I 
accepted  the  social  and  religious  scheme  of  regeneration  that 
the  nineteenth  century  owed  to  Auguste  Comte.  We  also 
are  Socialists  —  but  Socialists  with  a  difference  —  that 
whilst  working  for  an  entire  reorganisation  of  industrial  life, 
we  will  not  cease  to  work  for  the  far  more  vital  reorganisa- 
tion of  moral,  intellectual,  religious  life.  Without  this,  the 
pretended  reorganisation  of  industrial  hfe,  by  the  violent 
confiscation  of  personal  capital  (for  "compensation"  is  an 
idle  and  mendacious  phrase)  —  this  is  a  suicidal,  and  most 
immoral,  delusion. 

There  will  be  found  here  no  attempt  to  discuss,  what  are 
so  often  mistaken  for  real  socialism,  the  current  schemes  for 
the  state  acquisition  of  railways,  of  mines,  of  ports  and 
docks,  of  large  tracts  of  land,  or  of  banks;  for  the  State  con- 
trol of  all  academies  and  schools ;  for  the  feeding  of  school 
pupils ;  for  old-age  pensions ;  for  the  support  of  the  poor  and 
helpless;  for  an  Eight-hour  Day  —  or  a  Seven-hour  Day; 
for  a  minimum  wage;  for  a  revision  of  the  Suffrage;  for  a 
reduction  of  armaments;  or  for  the  reorganisation  of  local 
government;  and  generally  of  the  whole  parliamentary  and 
Imperial  system. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  call  these  schemes  socialism.  Many  of 
them  are  now  begun  or  advocated  by  reformers  of  all  schools. 
The  present  writer  would  be  heartily  in  favour  of  gradually 
introducing  any  or  all  of  them  with  due  consideration  of  the 
practical  advantage  of  each  scheme  in  its  detailed  form.  Each 
.proposal  has  to  be  considered  by  practical  statesmen  on  its 
merits  and  on  its  proven  efficiency.  It  would  be  a  mischiev- 
ous dogmatism  to  resist  them  as  mere  socialism;  as  it  is  a 
fallacy  to  regard  them  as  real  and  effective  socialism.  The 
socialism  which  was  brought  over  here  from  France  and  Ger- 


INTRODUCTION  XXXI 

many,  which  was  propounded  by  Proudhon,  Lassalle,  and 
Marx,  is  a  very  different  thing.  It  is  a  form  of  Communism, 
essentially  based  on  the  annihilation  of  personal  ownership 
of  Capital  in  any  form  —  the  annihilation  in  the  early  future 
of  the  Family,  and  ultimately  of  Civilisation  —  because  it 
applies  a  rigid  and  dominant  democracy  to  material  hfe  alone, 
blind  to  all  life,  domestic,  moral,  intellectual,  and  religious. 

To  that  we  oppose  a  socialism,  economic,  moral,  and 
religious,  whereby  the  reorganisation  of  society  as  a  whole 
will  be  secured  by  a  new  ethical  and  religious  education, 
entirely  reforming  the  spirit  in  which  Capital,  the  product  of 
society,  shall  be  used,  enjoyed,  and  controlled  for  the  good  of 
society  alone. 


PART  I 
NATIONAL  PROBLEMS 


BISMARCKISM:    THE  POLICY  OF  BLOOD    AND 

IRON 

{November  15,  1870) 

The  following  Essay  was  written  during  the  great  Franco- 
German  War  in  the  middle  of  November  iS'/o,  after 
the  surrender  of  Metz  and  the  armies  of  Napoleon  III. 
and  of  Bazaine.  Trochu,  with  400,000  men  in  arms, 
was  still  holding  out  in  Paris,  and  the  Republican  Govern- 
ment was  still  at  Tours  with  several  armies  in  the  field. 
At  that  time  English  sympathy,  at  least  in  the  Army, 
in  the  Conservative  press,  and  in  the  working  classes, 
was  being  turned  in  favour  of  the  French  defence.  The 
writer,  who  had  been  strongly  opposed  to  Napoleon's 
mad  invasion  of  German  territory,  was  full  of  indignation 
at  the  mode  in  which  the  war  was  being  carried  on  by 
Bismarck.  He  had  been  on  the  Continent  and  through 
Germany  during  August,  September,  and  October.  And 
he  foresaw  the  consequences  to  England  and  to  Europe 
of  submitting  to  Prussia  becoming  the  dominant  power  on 
the  Continent.  The  Essay  must  be  read  as  the  passionate 
protest  of  one  who  was  then  labouring  to  rouse  English 
opinion  to  give  some  assistance  to  France.  It  is  reprinted 
without  modification  as  it  stood  in  the  Fortnightly 
Review,  December  i8yo,  vol.  viii.,  then  conducted  by 
Mr.  John  Morley.  The  writer  reproduces  it  because  it 
is  as  true  in  essential  principle  as  it  was  at  the  time, 

3 


4  NATIONAL    AND    SOCIAL    PROBLEMS 

because  the  evils  then  evident,  and  the  consequences  then 
foreseen,  are  again  in  some  degree  imminent  to-day.     The 
writer  never  was  a  doctrinaire  ^^  pacificist,''^  as  it  is  the 
fashion  to  call  those  who  deprecate  the  huge  war  prepa- 
rations of  our  age.     But  he  has  ever  been  a  convinced 
opponent  of  Militarism.     With  all  his  admiration  for 
the  genius  and  energy  of  the  German   people,  he  still 
believes  that  the  real  cause  of  the  unrest  of  Europe  is 
to  be  found  in  the  system  of  ascendancy  by  armaments, 
founded  by  Bismarck  and  continued  by  his    successors 
(igo8). 

'^  It  is  desirable  and  necessary  to  improve  the  social  and  politi- 
cal condition  of  Germany;  this,  however,  cannot  be 
brought  about  by  resolutions  and  votes  of  majorities,  or 
speeches  of  individuals,  but  'by  blood  and  iron.",'  — 
Count  Bismarck. 

Tremendous  as  is  the  drama  which  we  have  been  watch- 
ing breathless  in  Europe,  we  have  seen  as  yet  but  its  opening 
scenes.  The  crash  of  the  most  gigantic  battles  known  to 
history  has  deafened  our  senses  to  the  political  movement. 
We  have  been  brought,  as  it  were,  in  the  flesh,  close  to  these 
onslaughts  of  two  nations.  We  have  almost  heard  with 
our  ears  the  cries  of  triumph  and  despair.  We  have  almost 
seen  with  our  eyes  the  grappling  of  the  combatants.  We  hold 
our  breath  in  the  crisis,  feeling  passionately,  some  with  one, 
some  with  the  other,  fighter  —  as  if  we  were  watching  gladi- 
ators in  an  arena. 

It  would  be  well  to  look  at  it  more  as  politicians,  and  less 
as  spectators.  This  great  struggle  concerns  the  welfare  of 
Europe  and  of  England;  it  is  our  own  future  and  peace 
that  are  at  stake.     Let  us  consider  what  may  be  the  con- 


BISMARCKISM  5 

sequences  to  civilisation,  and  not  regard  it  merely  as  a  grand 
study  of  national  character  or  some  stupendous  experiment 
in  modern  science.  It  is,  after  all,  not  entirely  a  matter  of 
sympathy  with  this  or  that  type  of  race.  Nor  does  it  turu^ 
altogether  on  this  or  that  quality  or  institution  in  one  people  or 
the  other.  Our  mere  sympathies  have  their  place;  but  it 
is  high  time  to  face  the  political  issues  foreshadowed.  And 
whilst  the  crowd  of  the  amphitheatre,  ever  siding  with  force 
and  success,  turn  down  their  thumbs,  and  cry  ''Habet! 
Hahet!"  let  us  ask,  What  may  this  contest  be  preparing 
for  Europe? 

It  is  pitiful  to  hear  the  grounds  on  which  the  issues  at 
stake  are  so  often  decided.  An  anecdote  about  a  land- 
ivehrman,  or  the  tone  of  a  proclamation,  seems  to  some 
people  sufficient  to  determine  the  right  and  wrong  in  the 
greatest  of  modern  struggles.  Frenchmen  have  given  utter- 
ance to  much  unwarrantable  language  about  the  "sacred- 
ness  of  French  soil,"  "Paris  the  city  of  the  world";  the 
peculiar  and  special  sanctity  of  a  republic,  and  the  enormity 
of  assaulting  the  Capital.  Count  Bismarck  never  said  a 
truer  word  than  this,  that  the  honour  of  France  is  of  precisely 
the  same  quality  as  the  honour  of  other  nations.  To  besiege 
Paris  is  what  it  would  be  to  besiege  Berlin,  if  it  were  fortified. 
To  bombard  Paris  is  no  greater  outrage  than  it  would  be  to 
bombard  London.  The  laws  of  war  certainly  do  give  the 
right  to  shell  a  fortified  city.  And  the  annexation  of  two 
provinces  is  not  to  be  counted  as  a  crime  merely  since  it  is 
done  at  the  expense  of  a  republic. 

Nor  is  the  nonsense  wanting  on  the  other  side.  The 
familiar  picture  of  the  German  soldier,  with  the  inevitable 
three  children  at  home,  writing  letters  to  his  wife  between 
the  pauses  of  each  battle,  and  studying  his  pocket  copy  of 
the  Vedas  on  the  outposts,  is  striking ;   but  it  is  not  decisive 


NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 


on  a  question  of  boundaries.  Pious  ejaculations  to  extir- 
pate the  immorality  of  France  sound  strangely  from  men 
reeking  from  the  gambling  hells  of  Baden  and  Homburg, 
and  the  stews  of  Hamburg,  Berlin,  and  Vienna.  The  fact 
that  the  educated  classes  are  serving  in  the  German  ranks 
is  not  incompatible  with  the  opinion  that  the  nation  is  dis- 
ordered with  military  ambition.  The  German  troops  may 
be  learned  in  every  modern  and  ancient  tongue.  Does  that 
lessen  the  danger  of  a  vast  military  empire?  The  German 
armies  may  be  the  "nation  in  arms."  But  have  invaders 
in  any  age  —  did  Tilly  or  Attila  himself  —  strip  a  people 
more  utterly  to  the  bone  than  they  have  stripped  the  east  of 
France?  These  fathers  of  families  and  model  husbands 
can  burn  down  villages  on  system,  set  fire  to  farmhouses 
with  petroleum,  massacre  civilians  in  cold  blood  by  superior 
order,  and  use  substantial  citizens  as  buffers  on  their  railway 
trains. 

There  is  so  much  of  the  overgrown  schoolboy  in  the  English 
world,  that  great  political  movements  are  judged  by  the 
childish  rules  of  the  playground.  People  need  to  be  reminded 
that  there  is  something  in  politics  more  profound  than  the 
motto  of  a  "fair  field  and  no  favour."  "They  would  fight, 
and  they  must  fight  it  out,"  says  one.  "The  weaker  is  beaten, 
and  must  pay  the  stakes,"  says  another.  "France  began  it," 
says  one.  "Germany  drove  her  to  it,"  says  another.  "The 
French  are  a  nation  of  liars,"  cries  one.  "The  Germans 
are  such  brutes,"  replies  his  neighbour.  All  this  is  the 
schoolboy  view  of  the  war,  just  as  thousands  of  people  took 
the  side  of  slavery  in  the  American  civil  war,  because  they 
said  the  Yankees  bragged  and  the  Southerners  were  descended 
from  gentlemen. 

Now  what  we  want  is  a  political  view  of  this  war.  A 
question  like  this  is  not  a  law-suit,  nor  is  it  a  personal  quarrel. 


BISMARCKISM  7 

It  concerns  the  future  well-being  of  Europe.  Speculations 
into  the  real  origin  of  the  war  are  worse  than  useless.  They 
are  like  discussions  on  the  origin  of  evil.  At  the  same  time 
some  short  account  of  the  basis,  as  it  were,  on  which  the 
present  argument  rests,  may  be  almost  indispensable. 

It  is  quite  plain  that  for  generations,  throughout  the 
political  and  literary  classes  of  France,  loud  and  arrogant 
voices  had  been  continually  raised  for  the  frontier  of  the 
Rhine.  There  is  no  proof  whatever  that  these  disgraceful 
appeals  could  ever  have  moved  the  body  of  the  French  nation 
to  an  aggressive  war  for  its  possession.  But  the  aggrandise- 
ment of  Germany,  and  the  formation  of  a  vast  military  power 
by  her  side,  undoubtedly  filled  France  with  a  fever  of  jealousy 
and  fear.  The  jealousy  of  German  unity  was  both  insolent 
and  foolish,  and  deeply  disgraces  the  French  name.  The 
fear  of  the  German  military  organisation,  if  hardly  worthy 
of  a  great  nation,  was  not  unnatural ;  and  if  we  look  at  the 
professional  cravings  of  the  German  chiefs,  quite  excusable. 
There  happened  to  France  what  would  happen  to  England 
if  France  by  a  war  of  aggrandisement  had  seized  Belgium 
and  Holland,  had  doubled  her  naval  strength,  possessed 
a  chain  of  great  arsenals  along  the  northern  coasts,  and  had 
acquired  a  fleet  of  ironclads  in  the  Channel  far  superior  to 
that  of  England,  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  disputing  her 
maritime  supremacy.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  England 
would  have  seized  the  first  opportunity  of  bringing  the  struggle 
to  an  issue ;  and  every  second  Englishman  would  have  been 
saying,  "Better  to  fight  it  out  at  once."  This  is  precisely 
what  France  felt  towards  Germany. 

But  although  the  professional  classes  in  both  nations  were 
equally  prepared  for  war,  in  both  they  were  kept  in  restraint 
by  the  good  sense  of  the  peaceable  mass  of  the  people.  And 
there  is  not  the  smallest  reason  to  suppose  that  either  the 


8  NATIONAL   AND    SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

French  or  the  German  people  would  deliberately  have  chosen 
a  war  of  conquest.  It  is  this  which  makes  the  war  peculiarly 
the  crime  of  Napoleon  and  his  civil  and  military  abettors. 
Large  classes  of  French  society  wantonly  supported  him,  and 
before  the  opinion  of  France  could  make  itself  heard,  she 
was  hurled  into  war.  The  French  people  as  a  whole  had 
no  voice  or  part  in  the  matter.  And  all  the  efforts  of  the 
prefets  could  not  wring  a  show  of  assent.  It  is  utterly  untrue 
that  either  they  or  the  citizens  of  Paris  advocated  war.  The 
writer  saw  a  letter  written  by  a  very  able  observer  from 
Paris  (one  who  is  now  at  his  place  on  the  ramparts)  during 
those  days  when  Pietri's  hirelings  were  shouting  through 
the  streets,  "d-  Berlin P'  "Paris,"  wrote  he,  "est  morne 
et  silencieux."  And  even  the  Government  never  pretended 
to  make,  and  never  dreamed  of  making,  this  a  war  for  the 
Rhine  frontier.  A  victory,  the  shadow  of  a  success,  and  a 
plausible  ground  for  peace,  was  all  that  they  dreamt  of. 
An  atrocious  project  in  itself;  one  in  which  the  French 
people  suffered  itself  to  be  involved,  and  one  for  which  the 
French  people  have  paid  a  terrible  price. 

In  this  state  of  things  the  war  began,  and  no  one  desired 
more  earnestly  than  the  present  writer  that  the  Germans 
might  repel  the  iniquitous  invasion,  and  destroy  the  military 
power  and  prestige  of  the  Empire.  No  one  rejoiced  more 
than  he  did  over  the  crushing  completeness  with  which  this 
was  done.  The  gain  to  civilisation  in  the  extinction  of 
Napoleonism,  and  of  the  wretched  impostor  in  whom  it 
has  ended  for  ever,  in  the  disgrace  which  has  covered  the 
corrupt  army  he  had  created,  is  almost  a  sufficient  com- 
pensation to  France  and  to  Europe  for  all  the  sufferings  of 
this  war.  It  is  therefore  with  no  blind  partiality  for  France 
that  this  question  is  here  discussed. 

But  the  matter  for  us  is  this  —  What  does  all  this  portend 


I 


BISMARCKISM  9 

to  Europe  ?  It  is  of  little  use  to  weigh  out  the  relative  measure 
of  guilt  in  either  Government,  or  the  degree  in  which  their 
people  participated  in  it.  The  German  leaders  have  passed 
from  the  task  of  defence  into  a  career  of  conquest.  They 
have  now  thrown  off  the  mask,  and  no  longer  contend  that 
they  are  continuing  the  national  defence.  They  no  longer 
even  pretend  that  they  are  fighting  for  territory.  They  are 
fighting  now  (November  15)  solely  for  the  military  point  of 
honour  —  the  taking  of  Paris.  As  the  Times  correspondent 
at  Versailles  told  us,  the  King  would  grant  no  armistice; 
for  every  Prussian  soldier  had  but  one  fixed  idea  —  to  enter 
Paris.  That  is  to  say,  the  Germans  are  now  fighting  for 
military  glory.  It  is  for  this  they  are  desolating  France  and 
distracting  Europe. 

We  have  protested  so  fiercely  against  the  military  ambition 
of  France,  that  we  have  come  to  forget  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  military  ambition  outside  France  at  all.  But  what  is 
Prussia?  The  Prussian  monarchy  is  the  creation  of  war. 
Its  history,  its  traditions,  its  ideal,  are  simply  those  of  war. 
It  is  the  sole  European  kingdom  which  has  been  built  up, 
province  by  province,  on  the  battlefield,  cemented  stone  by 
stone  in  blood.  Its  kings  have  been  soldiers:  sometimes 
generals,  sometimes,  as  now,  drill-sergeants;  but  ever  soldiers. 
The  whole  state  organisation  from  top  to  bottom  is  military. 
Its  people  are  a  drilled  nation  of  soldiers  on  furlough :  its 
sovereign  is  simply  commander-in-chief;  its  aristocracy  are 
simply  officers  of  the  staff;    its  capital  is  a  camp. 

Nowhere  in  Europe  —  not  even  in  Russia  —  has  the 
military  tradition  and  ideal  been  sustained  in  so  unbroken 
a  chain.  Prussia  proper  has  been  the  only  European  state 
organised  on  a  military  basis  as  completely  as  any  state  of 
antiquity.  In  the  words  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  "No 
nation  since  the  Roman  has  ever  devoted  itself  so  wholly 


10  NATIONAL    AND    SOCIAL    PROBLEMS 

to  the  development  of  the  military  side  of  the  national  life." 
And  this  is  true.  Let  it  be  distinctly  understood  that  this 
is  said  of  Prussia  only  in  its  political,  or  rather  its  inter- 
national aspect.  The  writer  is  the  last  person  to  forget  the 
splendid  intellectual,  artistic,  and  moral  achievements  of 
Germany;  the  high  cuhure,  and  noble  qualities  of  individual 
Germans ;  their  industry,  energy,  and  devotion  to  education. 
All  that  is  not  here  in  question.  What  is  meant  is  that  in 
her  international  relations  Prussia  is  a  nation  resting  on  a 
military  basis.  Prussia  in  a  distorted  way  is  the  Rome  of 
modern  Europe  —  a  brave  and  energetic  race  giving  their 
whole  national  force  to  war,  and  steadily  conquering  their 
neighbours  step  by  step.  The  notion  of  the  Prussian  army 
being  simply  a  militia  of  citizens  fighting  for  self-defence 
is  an  idle  figment.  Let  one  test  suffice.  Prussia,  or  rather 
Prussianised  Germany,  has  suddenly  thrown  into  the  field 
at  least  800,000  men,  possibly  1,000,000. 

Grant  that  these  are  mostly  armed  citizens.     If  there  is 

one  thing  in  this  war  certain,  it  is  that  this  vast  host,  the  largest 

which  has  ever  been  gathered  under  one  head  in  Europe, 

has  been  led  by  highly-trained  professional  officers,  equipped 

with    an    adequate    commissariat,    provided    with    gigantic 

siege  and  train  appliances,  aided  with  the    most    scientific 

engineers,  and  directed  by  the  most  accomplished  staff  that 

has  ever  taken  part  in  war.     Now  what  does  this  imply? 

It  is  this  — that  highly-trained  leaders  for  800,000  men  in 

every  branch  of  the  scientific  uses  of  war  are  not  the  creation 

of  a  militia,  are  not  made  in  a  day,  but  in  themselves  prove 

a  devotion  of  the  national  power  to  war  as  a  profession  far 

greater  than  exists  in  any  people  in  the  world  —  far  greater 

than  ever  has  been  regularly  organised  since  the  palmy  days 

of  the  Roman  Republic. 

We  hear  much  of  the  Chauvinism  of  the  French  army 


BISMARCKISM  II. 

and  military  class.  No  language  can  be  too  strong  for  it. 
It  is  odious ;  and  France,  even  in  passing  through  the  fire, 
is  well  freed  from  the  curse  of  France  —  its  own  army.  But 
that  Chauvinism  —  the  mere  insolence  of  the  soldier  — 
which  is  the  curse  and  shame  of  France,  has  not  tainted  the 
mass  of  the  people.  The  French  peasant,  and  still  more, 
the  French  workman  —  that  is  to  say,  nineteen  out  of  twenty 
Frenchmen  —  look  on  the  soldier's  professional  arrogance 
with  loathing.  To  the  peasant  the  army  represents  the 
blood-tax,  to  the  workman  the  instrument  of  the  tyrant. 
And  thus  Chauvinism  in  France,  with  all  its  shameful  attri- 
butes, is  a  cancer  in  French  society,  but  is  not  its  bone  and 
sinew. 

We  never  hear  of  the  Chauvinism  of  Prussia.  What 
may  be  the  reason?  Perhaps  that  the  whole  nation  is  so 
penetrated  with  a  faith  in  military  qualities  —  Chauvinism, 
in  fact  —  that  it  finds  no  distinct  type.  In  Prussia  the 
professional  soldier  makes  less  noise  —  not  because  the 
professional  soldier  is  so  alien  to  the  rest  of  society,  but 
because  he  is  so  much  akin  to  it.  Every  Prussian,  in  one 
sense,  is  a  professional  soldier;  and  as  a  matter  of  course 
adopts  the  soldier's  creed,  ideal,  and  morality.  No  one  can 
doubt  that  the  German  is  a  brave,  strong,  self-reliant,  acute, 
and  calm  man.  It  is  in  all  the  individual  virtues  a  grand 
and  large  type  of  human  nature.  The  German  soldier  is 
conspicuously,  and  even  nobly,  free  from  gasconading. 
He  very,  very  rarely  brags.  A  fine  quality;  but  there  are 
others  necessary  to  a  social  being.  And  a  man  may  disdain 
to  boast,  be  brave  and  self-possessed,  and  yet  be  overween- 
ingly  proud  of  his  brute  force,  and  determined  to  exert  his 
force  without  —  from  the  social  point  of  view  —  mercy, 
shame,  or  conscience.  And  such  a  man  is  the  professional 
Prussian  soldier. 


12  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

What,  for  the  last  generation,  has  been  the  history  of  the 
monarchy  of  Frederick  in  its  international  relations?  Two 
wars  of  conquest  against  Denmark;  a  war  of  conquest 
against  Southern  Germany;  bullying  Switzerland;  bully- 
ing Holland ;  oppression  in  Schleswig ;  oppression  in  Posen ; 
oppression  in  Hanover,  Saxony,  Frankfort,  Hamburg. 
We  quite  forget  that  that  history  of  the  destruction  of  the 
old  German  Confederation  is  a  perfect  tissue  of  violence 
and  fraud.  Spoliation  more  arrogant,  and  chicanery  more 
shameless,  has  never  been  seen  in  Europe  in  modern  times. 
The  Prussian  deals  with  the  weak  in  Europe,  as  Russia  deals 
with  the  Turk,  as  Europeans  deal  with  Asiatics,  but  as  no 
other  people  in  Europe  deal  with  a  Christian  neighbour. 
In  Prussian  politics  alone  the  very  germ  of  international 
morality  is  wanting. 

Unhappily  this  gospel  of  the  sword  has  sunk  deeper  into 
the  entire  Prussian  people  than  any  other  in  Europe.  The 
social  system  being  that  of  an  army,  and  each  citizen  drilled 
man  by  man,  there  is  (out  of  the  working  class)  no  sign  of 
national  conscience  in  this  matter.  And  the  servile  temper 
begotten  by  this  eternal  drill  inclines  a  whole  nation  to  repeat, 
as  by  word  of  command,  and  perhaps  to  believe,  the  con- 
venient sophisms  which  the  chiefs  of  its  staff  put  into  their 
mouths.  I  purposely  here  and  elsewhere  speak  of  Prussia, 
and  not  of  Germany ;  for  it  is  Prussia  alone  which  is  regularly 
organised  on  a  military  basis. 

We  hear  much  of  the  Napoleonic  legend.  But  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  the  HohenzoUern  legend;  and  one  of  the 
sophisms  which  Germany  repeats  is  the  worship,  as  of  a  great 
modern  ruler,  of  a  king  who,  even  in  his  own  eyes,  is  a  sort 
of  imitation  Czar.  One  of  the  most  laughable  of  these 
sophisms  is  the  notion  that  the  German  is  a  mild,  peaceable, 
and   stay-at-home   creature,   utterly   inoffensive,   and   never 


BISMARCKISM  I3 

resorting  to  arms  except  in  urgent  self-defence.  Really 
the  "mild  German"  reminds  one  of  the  "mild  Hindoo." 
It  is  entirely  forgotten  that  individual  is  a  very  different 
thing  from  national  character.  And  the  quiet  or  jovial 
Hans  of  his  own  fireside,  under  a  complex  set  of  national 
institutions,  becomes,  as  the  unit  of  a  nation,  one  of  a  con- 
quering people.  Nothing  can  get  over  these  facts:  that 
the  history  of  Prussia  consists  of  military  annals;  that  the 
present  generation  of  Prussians  have  three  times  threatened, 
and  have  four  times  engaged  in,  a  foreign  war;  and  that 
scarcely  an  acre  of  the  broad  fields  of  Germany  but  has 
been  soaked  in  the  blood  of  one  or  other  variety  of  the  "mild 
German."  The  lanzknecht  is  transformed;  but  he  stalks 
still  beneath  the  pickelhaube. 

Prussia,  and  even  Germany  under  the  Prussian  drill,  is, 
in  truth,  a  nation  far  more  military  than  France.  French 
opinion,  had  it  had  time  to  speak,  would  have  held  back 
Napoleon  from  his  iniquitous  career.  But  the  Prussian  rank 
and  file  (such  a  thing  as  public  opinion  does  not  exist)  have 
neither  the  desire  nor  the  power,  as  we  saw  in  '66,  to  question 
the  commands  of  their  chiefs.  And  one  of  the  most  ludicrous 
examples  of  this  slavish  condition  of  things  is  seen  in  the  way 
in  which  the  entire  German  race  re-echoes  the  language  of 
its  mere  soldiers,  and  all  the  time  that  it  wages  a  war  of 
conquest,  continues  to  repeat  the  formula,  "we  are  the  most 
peaceful  of  men,"  as  if  it  were  Von  Moltke's  own  pass-word. 

There  is  ground  for  thinking  that  many  of  them  actually 
l^believe  it.  One  of  the  most  repulsive  features  of  this  war 
is  the  way  in  which  a  spirit  of  Pharisaism  has  entered  into 
the  very  soul  of  the  German.  Pharisaism  —  hypocrisy  — 
cant  was  ever  the  Teutonic  vice.  But  in  the  history  of  human 
folly,  it  never  has  been  carried  to  such  a  point  as  in  this  late 
war.     A  nation  crazed  with  revenge  and  ambition,   keeps 


14  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

on  thanking  God  for  his  mercy  by  platoons,  the  God  which 
nine  out  of  ten  of  their  educated  men  openly  or  secretly 
ignore.  A  people  who  burn  villages  wholesale,  and  massacre 
peasants  on  system,  swear  that  they  are  the  most  inoffensive 
of  men.  They  heap  on  France  every  insult,  and  threaten 
every  evil  which  hatred  can  invent,  whilst  whining  througii 
Europe  that  they  are  only  seeking  a  safer  line  of  frontier. 
They  are  never  weary  of  calling  Heaven  to  witness  the  im- 
morality of  France,  whilst  themselves  waging  the  most 
savage  of  all  modern  wars,  with  inhuman  cruelty  and  relent- 
less hate.  They  for  ever  cry  out  over  the  falseness  of  France, ;f 
whilst  their  own  chosen  mouthpiece,  Bismarck,  is  perhaps 
the  most  accomplished  master  of  fraud  in  modern  times; 
whilst  the  official  and  literary  utterances  of  the  country 
form  one  system  of  organised  falsehood;  and  the  whole 
people  gives  itself  up  to  mere  stereotyped  cant.* 

This  falsehood  on  one  side  or  the  other  is  no  true  test  of 
right  or  wrong  in  this  quarrel,  but  it  is  just  as  well  to  clear 
away  misconceptions.  No  language  can  adequately  stamp 
the  untruth  of  French  officialism  and  journalism  through 
this  war.  It  is  simply  repulsive.  And  few  things  in  the 
frenzy  of  France  have  been  more  melancholy  than  the 
proneness  to  utter  and  to  adopt  fabrications.  It  is  a  sorry 
task  to  trace  all  the  ravings  of  a  distracted  people  in  the 
hour  of  their  death-struggle.  But  the  falsehood  of  Germans 
throughout  the  war,  if  less  wild,  has  been  more  systematic. 
German  officials  conceal  the  truth  with  at  least  as  much 
skill  as  French  distort  it.  In  fraud,  Bismarck  has  found  no 
French  match  or  even  rival.  One  impudent  cry  succeeds 
another.  Now  it  is  to  save  their  Holstein,  now  their  Alsatian 
brothers;    now  it  is  the  rescuing  France  from  her  corrupt 

'  We  now  know  the  whole  story  from  the  cynical  Memoirs  of  Prince  Bis- 
marck and  the  other  ofBcial  revelations  (January  1908). 


BISMARCKISM  1 5 

rulers,  purging  Europe  from  French  immorality,  putting 
down  military  ambition,  denouncing  English  partiality; 
now  it  is  the  guaranteeing  their  own  frontier.  One  after 
another  these  shameless  pretexts  are  taken  up  by  word  of 
command;  and  throughout  Germany  they  are  repeated  by 
man,  woman,  and  child  with  ridiculous  monotony.  French 
generals,  and  officials,  and  journals  lie;  but  the  French 
nation  has  not  given  itself  up  to  organised  cant  at  the  bid- 
ding of  its  officers. 

I  have  spoken  plainly  my  opinion  about  German  cruelty. 
I  say  it  most  deliberately  that  Germans  are  now  carrying 
on  war  with  inhuman  cruelty.  War  so  savage,  torture  so 
steadily  inflicted  on  a  civil  community,  has  never  been  seen 
within  two  generations  in  Europe  —  save  once.  That  once 
was  the  Russian  war  of  extermination  in  Poland.  It  rests 
on  the  German  race,  with  their  pretended  culture,  to  have 
carried  into  the  heart  of  Western  Europe  the  horrible  tra- 
ditions of  Eastern  barbarism.  I  do  not  intend  to  argue 
any  isolated  case.  Bazeilles,  Strasburg,  Ablis,  may  per- 
chance all  have  been  burnt  by  the  strictest  of  military  codes. 
I  do  not  charge  the  German  leaders  with  having  (exceptions 
excepted)  exceeded  in  acts  of  blood  what  are  called  the  laws 
of  war.  I  do  not  deny  that  many  of  them  may  be  proved 
to  be  what  are  called  military  necessities.  Still  less  do  I 
charge  Germans  individually  with  any  love  of  cruelty  as 
such.  But,  like  all  people  of  Teutonic  race,  the  Germans, 
though  they  do  not  love  cruelty,  are  perfectly  capable  of  it 
to  meet  their  ends ;  and  indeed  take  to  it  with  a  calm  inward 
satisfaction,  and  a  businesslike  completeness,  which  is  more 
horrible  even  than  the  excesses  of  passion. 

What  has  come  over  the  English  mind  that  it  acquiesces 
so  calmly  in  the  sanguinary  acts  of  this  war?  The  Germans 
have  not  exactly  pillaged.     "The  wise   'require'  it  call." 


1 6  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

^  But  they  have  stripped  one-third  of  France  utterly  to  the 
bone.  The  ransacking  the  villager's  home,  seizing  his  cattle, 
and  "requiring"  his  daily  bread  and  the  seed  of  his  land, 
may  be  strictly  according  to  the  rules  of  war ;  but  it  is  still 
inhuman  cruelty.  It  deliberately  reduces  him  to  starvation. 
The  bombarding  the  civil  portion  of  cities  may  be  a  right 
of  war,  but  it  is  still  inhuman  cruelty.  The  burning  of 
towns  and  villages  wholesale  —  twenty  we  were  glibly  told 
of  in  one  telegram  from  Berlin  —  may  be  a  military  necessity, 
but  it  is  inhuman  cruelty.  Plundering  citizens  by  threat 
of  instant  death,  the  placing  them  on  the  engines,  the  mas- 
sacre in  cold  blood  of  irregular  troops,  and  still  more  of 
villagers  suspected  of  aiding  them,  may  be  a  mere  measure 
of  self-defence;  but  I  call  it  inhuman  cruelty.  It  is  the 
murder  of  non-combatants  or  prisoners  —  and  therefore 
terrorism.  ^      ^  o  - 

Why   tell   us   that   Napoleon   did   it?     Napoleon   was   a 
monster;   and  generations  have  passed  since  that  day.     To 
murder  and   burn   alive   civil  populations,  —  men,  women, 
and  children,  —  to   burn  down  whole  districts,  to  massacre 
prisoners  in  cold  blood,  and  to    starve  a  civil    population, 
may  be  war;   but  it  is  not  the  less  inhuman.     The  fact  re- 
mains —  laws  of  war  or  not  —  that  no  nation  has  ventured 
on  this  bloody  path  in  Europe  for  generations,  except,  as 
said   before,   the    Russians   in   Poland.     Military   necessity 
forsooth!    So  said  the  Russians;    so  says  every  invader  in 
a  war  of  extermination.     But  what  necessity  compels  the 
Germans  still  to  carry  on  a  war  that  must  be  so  carried  on 
at  all?    What  compels  them,  with  France  prostrate  before 
them,  still  to  continue  this  horrible  course?    Nothing  but 
their  own  lust  for  conquest  and  glory.     Not  all  the  glozing 
of  their  truculent  hypocrites,  —  professors  or  journalists,  — 
who  exhort  them  to  these  outrages  as  to  acts  of  duty,  can 


BISMARCKISM  1 7 

cloak  this  under  the  plea  of  self-protection.  Deliberately, 
with  a  lie  on  their  lips,  they  choose  to  continue  a  war  of 
annihilation;  a  war  in  which  every  step  is  but  a  step  into 
a  deeper  sea  of  blood  and  horror.  Military  necessity  was 
ever  the  plea  of  pitiless  ambition.  If  all  this  blood  and 
horror,  over  and  above  all  modern  wars,  is  a  military  neces- 
sity of  this  war  —  then,  in  the  name  of  civilisation,  it  is  a 
social  necessity  to  stop  this  war.  The  fact  remains  that, 
in  mere  pursuit  now  of  military  glory,  the  Germans  are 
carrying  on  war  as  no  foreign  war  in  Europe  has  in  this 
age  been  carried  on,  as  it  is  an  outrage  to  humanity  to  carry 
on  war  at  all.  On  them,  and  on  their  children,  will  remain 
the  curse  of  reviving  in  modern  Europe  the  most  bloody 
and  barbarous  traditions  of  the  past  —  the  wholesale  wasting 
of  an  enemy's  country,  and  the  systematic  massacre  of 
civilians.^ 

Of  all  the  horrible  evils  of  this  war,  none  perhaps  is  more 
sinister  than  this:  the  debauchery  of  public  opinion  by  the 
taint  of  blood,  the  sinking  back  of  European  morality  to 
the  worst  of  the  old  level.  Wars  there  have  been  in  Europe, 
bloody  and  horrible  enough,  but  for  generations  now  they 
have  been  wars  between  regular  armies.  We  had  hoped 
and  believed  that  what  wars  there  were  to  be,  were  to  be 
fought  out  as  duels  between  set  forces,  and  not  waged  like 
the  wars  of  extermination  of  two  Indian  tribes.  This  hope 
has  been  crushed  by  Germany;  and  we  have  seen  a  war, 
not  only  the  most  gigantic  in  history,  but  one  marked  with 
almost  every  phase  of  antique  barbarity  —  the  wholesale 
massacre  of  non-combatants,  the  pillaging  of  civil  property 
on  system,  the  tyranny  of  a  hateful  conquest,  the  ferocity 

*Alast  in  the  last  thirty-five  years  we  have  often  seen  this  barbarous 
example  followed  —  though  not  in  Europe.  The  curse  of  Bismarckism 
is  that  it  has  torn  up  the  old  Law  of  Nations  (1908). 


l8  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

of  martial  law.  And  we  listen  to  it  all  calmly;  and  feel 
reassured  to  know  that  it  is  all  done  strictly  according  to 
the  books.  Desolation  and  murder,  sown  broadcast,  come 
upon  us  naturally  enough,  if  nothing  be  done  but  what  has 
the  sanction  of  Tilly,  or  Marlborough,  or  Napoleon. 

It  is  small  plea  to  tell  us  that  France  would  have  done 
the  same  to  Germany.  If  so,  then  on  her  would  have  lighted 
the  curse.  But  as  Germany  has  done  it,  on  her  it  rests. 
When  Russia  in  annihilating  Poland  told  us  that  the  fury 
of  the  Poles  was  such  that  it  could  not  be  broken  down  unless 
by  these  horrible  extremities  —  what  was  the  answer  of 
Europe  ?  Europe  answered  to  her :  —  by  what  compulsion 
must  you  break  down  Poland?  And  so  hereafter  will  rest 
on  Germany  the  ban  of  civilised  Europe. 

The  continuance  of  this  horrible  conflict  is  fast  inuring 
us  to  the  vile  code  of  blood.  For  months  the  journals  have 
filled  our  minds  with  the  loathsome  cant  of  the  camp.  Bloody 
battles  are  sketched  off  for  us  daily  with  a  jaunty  gusto  which 
is  sickening.  Women  and  children  are  well  tutored  in  all 
the  hideous  slang  of  the  trooper;  they  read  of  ''beautiful" 
charges,  and  "superb"  shell-practice,  and  of  "lively" 
fusillades.  Not  a  brutality  of  the  man-at-arms  is  spared  us. 
The  ghastly  delights  of  the  battlefield,  the  dreadful  indif- 
ference to  life,  the  foul  professional  jargon,  are  served  up  to 
us  with  much  patchwork  word-painting,  and  much  artificial 
joviality.  This  apelike  glee  in  mimicking  the  tone  of  war 
is  degrading  the  moral  sense.  And  the  most  horrible  of 
human  passions  —  the  love  of  destruction  in  its  most  settled 
and  professional  form  —  is  nursed,  and  adorned,  and  stimu- 
lated, until  it  is  growing  to  form  a  sort  of  standard  of 
opinion. 

It  seems  necessary  now  again  to  repeat  old  truisms  — 
that  the  slaughter  of  mankind  is  horrible  in  itself,  that  the 


BISMARCKISM  IQ 

trade  of  slaughtering  mankind  is  a  horrible  one,  that  the 
morality  of  the  slaughterer  of  mankind  is  necessarily  a  low 
one.  For  two  generations  the  military  type  of  life  had  been 
sinking  into  just  odium.  But  now,  forsooth,  war  is  to  be 
rehabilitated.  The  military  becomes  the  normal  form  of 
life.  Our  civil  life  is  to  be  recast.  Every  citizen  is  to  be 
a  soldier.  Every  civilian  talks  of  guns,  and  shells,  and 
formations,  and  apes  the  jargon  of  the  lowest  form  of  fight- 
ing animal,  Moltke  and  Bismarck  are  the  great  men  of 
our  age.  Prussia  is  our  model  state  of  an  armed  and  drilled 
nation.  The  one  great  public  question  is  the  recasting 
of  our  military  system.  Our  amusement  is  to  chatter  over 
the  incidents  of  these  vast  butcheries.  Our  literature  is 
the  picturesque  recounting  of  the  battle  or  the  siege.  And 
thus  we  are  falling  back  in  public  morality  a  century.  The 
military  becomes  the  true  type  of  human  society;  some 
pitiless  strategist  is  a  hero ;  some  unscrupulous  conspirator 
is  a  statesman ;  and  the  nation  which  is  the  best  drilled  and 
the  best  armed  in  Europe  is  to  go  to  the  van  of  modern 
civilisation.  Brutalising  and  senseless  creed !  And  this 
we  owe  to  Prussia.^ 

It  is  this  evil  which  is  the  most  to  be  dreaded  for  the  future 
—  the  destruction  of  international  morality  in  Europe, 
and  the  restoration  of  the  old  military  standard.  To  sub- 
stitute Bismarckism  for  Napoleonism  would  be  a  very  small 
gain  to  civilisation.  And  the  Prussian  army  is  vaster,  more 
anti-popular,  more  thoroughly  professional  and  retrograde 
in  its  tone  even  than  the  French.  The  French  military 
regime  —  Napoleonism  itself  —  always  rested  on  a  revolu- 
tionary basis,  and  existed  in  a  revolutionary  medium.  It 
was  always  felt  that  an  upheaving  of  the  people  could  shake 

'  And  I  have  lived  to  see  all  this  forecast  too  truly  verified  —  and  by 
our  own  countrymen  in  Asia  and  in  Africa  (1908). 


20  NATIONAL    AND    SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

it  to  its  foundations,  and  it  was  obliged  to  respect  and  some- 
times to  adopt  popular  principles.  But  the  Prussian  army 
rests  on  a  feudal  and  monarchic  basis  exclusively.  Patri- 
otism in  Prussia  means  obedience  to  the  commander-in- 
chief.  The  ranks  of  society  mean  grades  in  the  army. 
Thorough  discipline  reigns  throughout  it.  And  this,  how- 
ever valuable  in  a  military  point  of  view,  in  the  political 
implies  the  stagnation  of  all  civil  life.  Thus  the  Prussian 
army  (and  for  all  international  purposes  the  Prussian  army 
is  the  Prussian  Government)  represents  the  most  retrograde 
spirit  in  modern  society,  and  is  the  natural  foe  of  every 
element  of  progress.  What  are  we  to  gain,  therefore,  by 
substituting  the  Prussian  for  the  Napoleonic  regime  in 
Europe  ? 

We  are  told  to  trust  to  Germany  at  the  close  of  her  victory 
assuming  a  liberal  form.  What  are  the  grounds  for  any 
such  hope?  Bismarck  may  promise  to  "crown  the  edifice," 
as  Napoleon  did  every  Spring,  and  with  as  great  result. 
We  have  seen  the  Prussian  government  engaging  in  one 
war  of  conquest  after  another ;  but  we  never  heard  that  the 
people  could  exert  the  smallest  influence  on  its  government. 
Why  will  they  do  so  when  Bismarck  and  Moltke  have  riveted 
the  chains  of  Germany  —  for  it  is  for  Germany,  not  France, 
that  they  are  forging  chains  ?  What  single  political  principle 
in  Europe  is  due  to  Prussia  ?  Politically,  Prussia  is  a  camp, 
and  the  Prussian  is  a  conscript.  With  all  the  wonderful 
intelligence,  industry,  culture,  and  energy,  for  which  in- 
dividual Prussians  cannot  be  too  highly  rated,  the  nation, 
as  a  political  whole,  has  been  ground  down  by  drill  and 
bureaucracy,  of  which  their  very  state  education  is  a  part, 
to  political  nonentity.  There  is  more  true  public  life  in 
Russia  itself.  I  do  not  forget  the  strong  language  used  by 
deputies   and   journalists.     But   neither   exert   the   smallest 


BISMARCKISM  21 

influence  over  the  action  of  the  Monarchy  and  its  Bu- 
reaucracy. 

Now  the  elevation  of  a  spirit  Hke  this  (a  spirit  the  better 
side  of  which  is  seen  in  the  antiquated  pride  of  the  old  mar- 
tinet-king, and  its  worst  in  the  "blood  and  iron"  of  his  crafty 
minister)  must  tell  on  the  public  opinion  of  Europe.  Let 
us  suppose  that  Germany  returns,  having  added  to  her 
frontiers  Lorraine  and  Alsace,  in  the  whole  of  her  vast 
strength,  and  with  the  immense  prestige  of  her  unparalleled 
successes.  The  position  of  France,  Germany  holding 
Metz  and  Strasburg,  is  simply  that  of  Piedmont  whilst 
Austria  held  the  Quadrilateral.  Germany  would  hold  an 
armed  hand  pointed  at  the  heart  of  France.  With  her 
capital  and  her  richest  provinces  almost  under  the  guns 
of  these  great  fortresses,  France  would  be  in  every  question 
at  the  mercy  of  her  great  neighbour.  She  must  be  the 
centre  of  a  restless  agitation,  looking  for  allies  everywhere, 
and  seeking  her  opportunity  anywhere.  We  well  remember 
what  it  was  for  European  peace  to  have  had  an  Italian  and 
a  Polish  question  —  what  would  it  be  to  have  a  French 
question,  France  suffering  a  standing  humiliation  and 
danger?     Europe  would  not  enjoy  a  day  of  repose  or  peace. 

There  are  those  who  look  to  see  Prussia  actually  dominat- 
ing Europe  in  arms.  We  need  look  for  no  such  danger. 
Undoubtedly  there  are  the  germs  of  many  a  sinister  com- 
bination. Denmark,  no  doubt,  will  fall  one  day  a  prey  to 
her  old  despoiler.  A  struggle  for  the  German  subjects  of 
Austria  is  inevitable.  Holland  and  Belgium  both  have 
reason  to  fear.  Russia,  in  spite  of  dynastic  sympathies, 
must  be  the  enemy  of  aggrandised  Prussia.  Prussia  already 
coquets  with  the  Pope  and  threatens  Italy,  no  doubt  as 
succeeding  to  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  Patriotic  murmurs 
will  soon  be  raised  to  recall  their  erring  German  brothers 


22  NATIONAL    AND    SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

in  Switzerland.  The  theory  of  a  German  Rhine  (some 
filibustering  professor  will  explain  to  us)  requires  that  it 
flows  through  dominions  of  the  Emperor  of  Germany  from 
the  glaciers  to  the  sea.  They  even  now  are  calling  out  for 
the  rescue  of  their  lost  brothers  in  Heligoland.^  There  are 
quarrels  enough  and  to  spare;  causes  and  "races"  enough 
to  embroil  Europe  for  a  century.  There  is  the  unburied 
Holstein  question,  the  Polish  question,  Panslavism,  Czeckism, 
Pan-Germanism,  the  Rhine  question,  the  Belgian  question, 
the  Heligoland  question,  the  Papal  question;  why  not  the 
Burgundian  question,  and  the  restoration  of  the  empire  of 
Charlemagne?  If  Europe  is  to  be  recast  to  fit  the  crazy 
pedantry  of  German  professors,  the  Prussian  spread-eagle 
will  give  us  all  a  pleasant  time  of  it. 

Now  it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  Prussia  is  about 
to  overrun  Europe  with  her  troops  as  she  is  overrunning 
France.  That  is  not  the  danger.  We  have  not  come  to 
that  point  of  weakness  —  we  non-German  people  of  Europe, 
and  perhaps  even  German  docility  would  have  a  limit  some- 
where. But  what  is  to  be  feared  is  the  passing  of  the  undis- 
puted supremacy  of  force  to  such  a  power  as  Prussia  — 
organised  exclusively  for  war,  retrograde,  feudal,  despotic, 
—  more  unscrupulous  and  ambitious  than  Napoleonism 
itself.  If  Prussia  returns  home  triumphant,  and  mistress 
of  the  greatest  fortresses  of  France,  Europe  is  handed  over 
to  a  generation  of  arming  for  war ;  and  civilisation  is  thrown 
back  incalculably.  The  military  and  reactionary  powers 
will  have  their  own  black  reign  again  as  they  did  from  the 
treaty  of  Vienna.  All  the  life  of  Southern  Germany  will 
be  crushed  out  of  her.  In  Northern  Germany  there  is  not, 
and  never  was,  any  political  life.     Germany  at  this  moment 

'  Brothers  so  judiciously  rescued  in  1890,  and  so  happily  restored  by 
our  Imperialists  (1908). 


BISMARCKISM  23 

is  under  the  rule  of  the  sword  as  completely  as  the  conquered 
provinces  of  France.  The  mild  German  may  hope  and 
protest,  but  he  is  mild  enough  in  his  own  country.  He  has 
waited,  with  the  patience  of  a  sentinel,  for  some  civic  life 
to  be  given  him  by  his  "good  and  pious"  king  and  his  clever, 
wise  Bismarck  —  but  he  may  wait  for  a  century.  Germany 
is  really  under  martial  law  at  this  moment,  and  likely  so  to 
remain.  The  democratic  leaders  are  in  prison  for  protesting 
against  a  policy  of  annexation.  Public  opinion  is  stifled 
by  police  and  soldiery.  And  the  leaders  of  the  people  who 
raise  a  voice  against  militarism  have  something  to  put  up 
with  far  more  serious  than  the  amenities  of  a  journal. 

Do  the  English  people  seriously  consider  what  even 
from  their  insular  point  of  view  this  portends  to  them? 
The  capitulation  of  Sedan  tore  up  the  treaties  of  1856.  The 
blood  and  sacrifices  of  the  Crimean  war  are  thrown  away, 
or  must  be  repeated.  Which  alternative  will  England 
choose?  Russia  is  free,  she  is  actually  preparing  to  carry 
out  her  schemes  of  conquest  in  the  East.  Prussia  is  openly 
threatening  this  country.  She  repeats,  and  her  drilled  press 
and  literature  reiterate  impudent  charges  against  our  neu- 
trality. There  is  an  ominous  courting  of  the  friendship 
of  America,  with  what  end  every  one  can  see.  Prussia 
openly  aims  at  maritime  power,  the  command  of  the  Baltic, 
and  the  recovery  of  Heligoland.  Denmark  may  be  swal- 
lowed up,  as  the  first  step  in  this  career.  Holland  may  be 
the  next  leaf  in  the  northern  artichoke.  Belgium,  by  the 
force  of  events,  may  be  compelled  to  throw  herself  into  the 
arms  of  France.  In  a  word,  there  is  hardly  a  country  left 
without  embroilment  and  danger.  Europe  is  thrown  into 
the  cauldron  to  be  recast,  and  a  new  Holy  Alliance  is  forming 
on  the  principle  of  "Blood  and  Iron"  which  England  must 
meet  absolutely  alone. 


24  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

What  should  be  our  policy  ?  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  — 
to  check  the  progress  of  Prussian  ambition.  To  check 
it  by  diplomacy  if  possible;  but  by  arms  if  necessary.  It 
is  not  in  the  name  of  France,  nor  of  the  French  Republic; 
but  in  the  highest  interests  of  European  peace  and  progress 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  England  to  withstand  the  domination 
of  a  new  empire  of  the  sword.  It  is  time  to  raise  the  retro- 
grade and  military  weight  of  Prussia  off  Europe,  and  to 
force  her  back  to  her  true  place.  How  is  this  to  be  done, 
even  if  we  wished  it,  men  ask  aghast,  and  what  can  resist 
Prussia?  As  if  statesmanship,  energy,  and  power  had 
left  this  country  for  ever.  Is  this  nation  Holland,  Belgium, 
Denmark,  that  it  is  to  count  for  nothing  in  European  politics  ? 

In  the  first  place  it  is  to  be  done  by  statesmanship.  If 
England  threw  her  whole  heart  into  it,  and  it  was  known 
that  she  had  pledged  herself  to  it,  she  could  form  a  great 
coalition  of  neutral  states.  She  should  put  herself  at  the 
head  of  a  federation  of  the  weak,  which  in  itself  would  be 
a  strong  federation.  She  should  bind  Sweden,  Denmark, 
Holland,  Belgium,  and  Switzerland  first  in  offensive  and 
defensive  alliances,  in  which  each  member  of  the  union 
guaranteed  the  inviolability  of  each  of  the  others  with  their 
whole  force.  She  should  put  herself  right  by  restoring  all 
her  foreign  possessions  in  Europe.  She  might  hold  Heli- 
goland for  the  new  Federation  or  for  Denmark,  to  whom 
it  seems  to  belong.  She  might  restore  Gibraltar  to  Spain, 
and  Malta,  if  required,  to  Italy.  Then  if  statesmanship 
be  a  real  thing  at  all,  Spain,  Italy,  Austria,  all  already  sympa- 
thising with  France,  could  be  brought  into  the  alliance. 
They  would  be  feeble  hands  who,  using  such  a  force,  and 
with  the  wTight  of  all  Western  Europe  in  one,  could  not  by 

'  Something  like  such  a  pacific  alliance  or  entente  has  been  at  last  secured, 
mainly  by  the  King  (1908). 


■T 


BISMARCKISM 


25 


a  moral  demonstration  alone  cause  the  German  to  pause, 
and  to  conclude  a  reasonable  peace. 

And  failing  this,  for  one,  I  would  shrink  from  no  con- 
sequences. If  Germany,  in  her  headstrong  ambition, 
insisted  on  the  destruction  of  France,  and  no  joint  effort  of 
neutrals  were  possible,  let  England  throw  herself  into  the 
rescue  of  France  with  her  whole  forces,  moral  and  material, 
naval  and  military.  If  the  task  be  hopelessly  beyond  her 
strength,  then  England  has  ceased  to  be  a  great  power, 
and  must  have  sunk  back  indeed  since  the  days  of  Pitt  or 
Chatham  or  Marlborough.  It  is  a  heavy  task,  doubtless, 
and  one  not  to  be  done  in  a  day.  But  it  is  not  hopeless. 
Let  money,  guns,  and  supplies  be  poured  into  France,  with 
the  aid  of  the  English  fleet,  and  it  may  be  well  believed  that 
France  could  turn  the  tide.  She  has  a  million  of  men  in 
arms.  What  she  needs  is  time  and  every  material  of  war. 
And  if  that  did  not  suffice  —  let  100,000  men  in  red,  equipped 
with  every  munition  of  war,  be  planted  in  some  spot  in 
Brittany  or  Normandy  where,  supplied  and  covered  by  the 
fleet,  they  might  take  up  a  new  Torres  Vedras. 

Then,  let  Paris  fall  or  not,  with  the  incalculable  moral 
support  and  inexhaustible  material  supplies  of  England, 
France  would  not  fall.  She  would  rise  more  desperate 
after  every  defeat,  and  more  resolved  after  every  calamity. 
She  might  be  driven  back  to  Brittany  or  the  Pyrenees.  She 
might  endure  every  agony  that  a  nation  could  suffer.  It 
might  be  years  before  the  struggle  ended.  But  once  let  it 
be  known  that  the  whole  heart  and  power  of  England  was 
on  her  side,  English  gold,  stores,  and  arms  pouring  in  at 
every  port,  and  an  English  entrenched  camp  as  a  reserve, 
and  the  tenacity  of  France  would  do  the  rest;  slowly  the 
grip  of  the  eagle  would  grow  feebler,  slowly  the  exhausted 
conquerors  would  withdraw,   and  at  length  the  armies  of 


26  NATIONAL    AND    SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

the  two  western  nations,  brother  leaders  of  the  van  of  civilisa- 
tion, would  force  back  the  German  invader  to  his  own 
border.  Such  would  be  the  policy  of  Chatham,  of  William, 
or  of  Cromwell. 

It  is  a  great  task.  But  great  nations  have  great  tasks 
to  do,  and  statesmanship  is  the  doing  great  tasks;  but  it  is 
a  task  worth  every  sacrifice.  With  France  prostrate  under 
the  armed  heel  of  Germany,  with  Germany  in  possession 
of  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  with  that  retrograde  military  power 
the  acknowledged  arbiter  of  Europe,  Europe  can  know  no 
disarming,  no  progress  for  a  generation.  I  disdain  to  an- 
swer the  canting  plea  that  these  provinces  can  add  to  the 
safety  of  Germany  or  the  peace  of  Europe.  It  is  obviously 
the  real  object  of  this  annexation,  to  enable  Prussia  to 
maintain  a  vast  military  establishment  and  vantage-ground, 
from  which  to  take  Southern  Germany  in  flank,  and  coerce 
her  in  the  great  struggle  which  is  about  to  commence  there. 
The  regime  of  war,  of  conquest,  of  subjugation  begins  again; 
and  civilisation  is  arrested  for  generations. 

What  still  remains  for  France?  Simply  to  fight  on. 
France  cannot  be  conquered.  No  great  nation  can.  The 
cession  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine  is  not  merely  the  surrender 
of  two  provinces.  It  is  the  delivering  up  the  country,  its 
capital,  and  its  independence,  bound  hand  and  foot,  to  a 
ruthless  neighbour.  It  is  what  no  Frenchman  worthy  of 
the  name,  could  assent  to.  "Better  burn  France  to  ashes 
rather,"  as  Danton  said.  Let  us  take  a  parallel  case.  France 
(we  will  suppose),  in  a  sudden  and  unprovoked  war,  has 
seized  Belgium,  Holland,  and  Denmark,  and  formed  along 
the  whole  northern  coast  of  Europe  a  network  of  arsenals, 
which  sheltered  a  combined  fleet  far  larger  and  stronger 
than  any  possible  British  fleet.  For  years  she  equips  this 
fleet  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  wresting  from  England 


BISMARCKISM  27 

the  supremacy  of  the  sea.  England  rings  with  indignation, 
jealousy,  and  fear.  In  an  evil  hour  an  English  ministry, 
without  consulting  the  nation,  hurls  the  country  into  war, 
and  attacks  the  French  fleet  in  its  moorings.  Through 
flagrant  incapacity  of  the  English  Admiralty  (a  not  incredible 
assumption)  the  entire  navy  of  England  is  annihilated. 
The  French  forces  invade  this  country.  Everything  goes 
down  before  them.  They  take  the  arsenals,  and  hold  one- 
third  of  England,  wasting  it  with  fire  and  sword.  The 
dynasty  (perhaps  an  impossible  supposition)  is  swept  away 
for  ever.  London  still  holds  out,  and  throughout  England 
vast  forces  are  being  organised  for  defence.  The  only  terms 
that  the  conqueror  will  accept  are  the  permanent  posses- 
sion of  Portsmouth  and  Plymouth,  their  harbours,  docks, 
and  forts,  with  Dorsetshire,  Devonshire,  and  Cornwall, 
to  be  incorporated  with  France,  on  the  plea  that  they  were 
once  possessions  of  the  Dukes  of  Normandy,  or  were  once 
inhabited  by  Bretons.  These  are  the  conquerors'  terms. 
England  is  still  not  exhausted  in  men,  money,  arms,  or 
material.  London  contains  an  army  twice  as  numerous 
as  its  besiegers.  The  north  of  England  swarms  with  armies. 
What  Englishman  will  say  (with  his  name,  not  with  his 
initials)  that  he  would  call  on  his  countrymen  to  sign  such 
a  peace  ?  The  man  who  could  do  it,  or  talk  of  it,  must  have 
the  heart  of  a  slave. 

And  yet  there  are  men  quite  filled  with  moral  indignation 
that  Frenchmen  can  refuse  such  a  peace.  They  talk  quite 
grandly  of  the  guilt  of  refusing  such  terms.  How  many 
a  lost  cause  have  Englishmen  applauded  —  the  Polish, 
the  Circassian,  the  Arab  defences,  the  defence  of  Hungary 
and  Rome  in  1849,  of  the  Danes  in  1864,  of  the  Confederates 
in  1866,  was  heroic  in  the  eyes  of  most  of  those  who  are  in- 
sulting the  defiance  of  France.    And  now  these  hypocrites 


28  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

—  who  hate  France  —  call  on  her  to  yield  in  the  name  of 
peace  and  good  sense.  In  the  meantime  the  case  of  France 
is  not  hopeless.  Every  day  her  spirit  seems  to  grow  more 
resolute.  Paris  may  fall  —  may  have  fallen  before  these 
pages  are  published  —  but  that  is  not  the  end.  It  may 
be  that  this  is  but  the  beginning  of  the  war,  and  not  its  end. 
The  wealth  of  France  is  boundless,  her  population  is  un- 
exhausted, her  natural  resources  infinite.  She  has  nearly 
a  million  of  men  under  arms;  she  has  six  or  seven  armies 
in  the  field,  and  all  her  seaboard  and  ports  untouched.  It  is 
the  fashion  to  sneer  at  her  efforts,  to  deny  her  courage,  and 
to  undervalue  her  resources.  For  my  part,  in  spite  of  wild 
speeches  and  divided  counsels,  I  call  the  resolute  front  of 
her  actual  rulers  heroic.  I  will  not  be  curious  to  note  their 
faults  or  their  follies.  I  will  forgive  them  and  honour  them 
for  carrying  on  the  traditions  of  the  great  Danton,  and  for 
uttering  defiance  in  the  midst  of  unparalleled  disasters. 
I  call  the  rush  to  arms  of  all  able-bodied  Frenchmen  heroic, 
and  in  the  main  I  accept  that  as  a  fact.  I  call  the  willingness 
of  Frenchmen  to  bear  every  extremity  rather  than  a  dis- 
honourable peace  heroic.  And  above  all,  I  call  the  defence 
of  Paris,  the  unity  of  its  multiform  population,  and  the 
resolve  of  its  attitude  heroic. 

All  this  is  much  out  of  fashion  now.  It  is  easy  to  make 
sport  of  the  ravings  of  a  distracted  people  in  such  a  crisis, 
to  repeat  the  murmurs  of  the  cravens,  and  to  paint  pictures 
of  panic  here,  bombast  there ;  of  suspicion  in  one  place, 
delusion  in  other,  and  dissensions  everywhere.  We  all 
forget  how  France  now  lives  as  under  a  microscope,  and 
thousands  of  unfriendly  eyes  are  watching  every  spasm. 
We  all  forget  too  how  stupidly  a  Teutonic  people  mistakes 
the  excitement  of  a  Keltic  people  for  weakness.  Their 
ways  are  not  our  ways ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  big  words 


I 


BISMARCKISM  29 

go  always  with  little  deeds.  It  is  easy  for  the  victors  to  be 
dignified  and  calm ;  easier  especially  for  a  people  of  such 
admirable  self-possession  and  so  perfectly  drilled  as  the 
Germans.  But  where  is  the  nation  in  the  agony  of  such 
mortal  strife  that  would  escape  confusion,  divided  counsels, 
and  wild  talk  ?  The  energy,  unity,  and  patriotism  of  France 
in  the  first  shock  are  far  greater  than  was  shown  either  by 
Prussian,  German,  or  Austrian  after  Austerlitz,  Jena,  and 
Wagram,  greater  than  was  shown  by  the  great  American 
people  in  the  first  months  after  Bull's  Run.  Let  us  only 
trust  that  if  so  horrible  a  catastrophe  ever  should  befall 
this  nation,  all  civil  strife  and  parties  may  be  unknown, 
that  all  administrators  may  act  with  dignity  and  judgment, 
that  false  hopes  and  wild  speech  may  be  as  little  heard  as 
ungenerous  suspicions;  that  upon  the  annihilation  of  the 
whole  regular  force  and  the  loss  of  the  whole  material  of 
war  in  the  country,  a  million  of  citizens  may  be  gathered 
in  arms  in  two  months ;  that  seven  armies  may  be  organised, 
equipped,  and  armed ;  that  bloodshed,  fire,  famine,  and 
pillage  may  not  break  the  spirit  of  our  people ;  that  our 
citizens  may  calmly  submit  to  starvation  and  bombardment, 
and  that  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  island 
there  may  rise  up  only  one  cry  —  War  to  the  knife,  rather 
than  dishonourable  peace.^ 

But  come  what  may  —  if  France  drive  out  the  invader, 
or  sink  under  his  weight  —  certain  considerations  remain 
I  for  the  statesman's  attention.  This  war  involves  social 
j  changes  greater  than  any  since  1789.  The  war  has  been 
f  caused  by  social  movements,  and  it  must  issue  in  still  greater. 
1     Bismarck   and   Napoleon  were   each  driven   to   divert   the 


*  As  we  know,  within  two  months  after  this  was  written,  Paris  was  starved 
into  surrender;  the  treachery  of  Bazaine  sacrificed  the  last  regular  army 
of  France,  social  enmity  and  the  selfish  apathy  of  the  South  ruined  the  de- 
fence; and  Peace  was  made  (1908). 


30  NATIONAL    AND    SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

energy  of  their  respective  nations  to  foreign  war  by  the  up- 
heaving of  the  popular  spirit  at  home.  The  imminent 
danger  to  his  own  throne  at  last  drove  Napoleon  into  war. 
The  very  disasters  of  France  are  due  to  the  same  cause. 
France  (we  must  never  forget)  is  still  heaving  with  internal 
revolution.  There  the  great  social  struggle  between  capital 
and  labour,  that  prolonged  struggle  on  which  England  is 
entering,  and  to  which  Germany  is  approaching,  is  already 
far  advanced.  The  real  cause  of  the  war,  of  the  disasters, 
of  the  powerlessness  of  France,  is  one  and  the  same :  — 
that  France  is  in  the  convulsion  of  a  social  revolution.  She 
is  divided  against  herself.  Workman  and  employer,  rich 
and  poor,  stand  apart  in  two  camps,  distrusting  each  other, 
counter- working  each  other;  and  thus  a  prey  to  political 
adventurers.  France  is  thus  for  a  time  weak ;  and  falls 
in  war  an  easy  victim  to  the  unity  of  Germany,  in  which, 
from  its  more  backward  social  condition,  all  this  crisis  is 
yet  to  come.  It  is  very  probable  also  that  the  gradual 
disintegration  of  France  into  smaller  political  aggregates, 
a  process  which  awaits  the  larger  states  of  Europe,  has  already 
begun.  There  are  now  three  or  four  French  political  units.* 
But  the  moment  France  has  weathered  the  storm,  the 
impulse  given  to  her  social  movement  will  be  enormous. 
The  Republic  has  been  established ;  and  the  Republic  itself 
is  the  only  institution  in  France  which  has  not  been  dis- 
credited. France,  too,  has  been  happily  relieved  of  that 
incubus  which  has  hitherto  rested  on  progress  —  her  army. 
Those  350,000  praetorians  —  those  marshals,  generals,  and 
staff ;  guns,  standards,  material,  and  eagles  —  the  whole 
Chauvinist  camp,  from  Emperor  to  drummer-boy,  have 
been  swept  into  space  and  into  ignominy.     The  professional 

*  The  disintegrating  process  and  the  cause  of  anti-militarism  have  now 
reached  an  ominous  degree  (1908). 


BISMARCKISM  3 1 

soldier  in  France  is  morally  dead.  Her  army,  the  curse 
of  Europe  and  of  civilisation,  has  gone  out  with  an  ill  savour. 
It  was  not  the  decheance  of  Napoleon  that  was  proclaimed 
in  Paris  on  the  4th  of  September,  but  the  decheance  of  mili- 
tarism. The  soldier  is  become  an  anachronism ;  the  symbol 
of  national  degradation.  The  only  sort  of  honour  has  been 
won  by  workmen  and  peasant  volunteers  —  a  true  citizen- 
army  of  national  guard.  For  the  first  time  in  French  history, 
the  workmen  of  the  great  towns  are  armed  and  organised, 
and  the  whole  of  the  new  army  from  top  to  bottom  is  es- 
sentially democratic.  In  a  military  sense,  this  may  as  yet 
be  a  weakness ;  but,  in  a  political  sense,  it  means  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  people. 

Even  after  the  fall  of  Paris,  the  war  may  be  indefinitely 
prolonged.  But  it  must  end  some  day.  And  then,  with 
France  exhausted,  stripped  of  everything,  wealth  and  the 
means  of  wealth  annihilated,  she  will  be  in  the  position  of 
a  new  country ;  capital  will  be  in  search  of  labour,  and  labour 
will  be  master  of  the  situation.  However  long  the  war 
continue,  and  however  great  the  sufferings  of  France,  it 
is  the  rich  who  really  suffer.  The  poor,  so  long  as  they  keep 
their  own  skins  whole  and  are  not  actually  starving,  do  not 
lose  much,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  have  nothing  to 
lose.  A  Prussian  invasion  to  them  involves  no  greater 
personal  loss  than  individual  distress,  hard  times,  or  a  lock- 
out —  indeed,  far  less,  for  they  are  the  most  indispensable 
part  of  the  public,  and  must  be  fed. 

On  the  conclusion  of  peace,  therefore,  the  people,  socially 
and  politically,  will  be  masters  of  the  destinies  of  France, 
and  ultimately  of  Europe.  All  that  France  loses  in  material 
ascendancy  in  Europe,  she  will  gain  in  moral  ascendancy. 
Peace  cannot  be  made  in  such  a  way  but  that  relatively 
labour  shall  be  left  in  the  ascendant.     It  was  so  after  the 


32  NATIONAL    AND    SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

hurly-burly  of  1793,  and  it  will  be  so  again  after  1870.  And 
the  workmen  are  the  only  people  who  have  upheld  the  hon- 
our of  France.  Thus,  however  France  may  be  materially 
crippled,  the  cause  of  the  Republic  and  of  labour  will  come 
to  the  front.  Even  if  the  Republic  itself  collapse  in  the 
strife,  for  France  is  still  divided  into  two  camps  —  the  rich 
and  the  poor  —  the  republican  element  will  be  strong. 
And  France  will  retain  and  increase  her  moral  influence. 
Not  only  Napoleonism  and  militarism  are  dechus  hence- 
forth in  France,  but  something  else ;  and  that  is,  the  indolent 
extravagance  of  the  rich.  The  degraded  and  selfish  pomp 
of  the  third  Empire  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  For  once  since 
1793  liberty  and  equality  have  begun  to  be  realities. 

But  the  people  in  France  will  not  stand  alone.  Round 
them  will  gather  the  people  and  the  republicanism  of  Europe. 
In  all  the  sufferings  and  humiliations  of  France,  this  cause 
will  gain  a  new  impulse.  From  henceforward  the  French 
people  alone,  even  in  the  eyes  of  German  democrats,  will 
be  felt  to  bear  the  standard  of  progress.  The  dangerous 
designs  of  Prussia,  her  retrograde  ambition,  will  be  the 
great  enemies  of  the  people  all  over  the  world.  Round 
the  workmen  of  France  those  of  England  have  long  gathered ; 
those  of  Switzerland,  Spain,  Italy,  and  Germany  herself 
are  gathering.  The  issue  is  so  critical  for  the  future,  and  the 
dangers  from  the  reactionary  power  are  so  serious,  that  they 
override  all  national  and  local  questions.  Now  it  will  neither 
be  England,  France,  nor  Germany;  but  Republic  against 
Monarchy.  Round  the  Prussian  throne  gather  all  the  retro- 
grade principles ;  round  the  French  people  all  the  progressive. 
In  this  great  issue,  national  and  party  questions  dwindle. 
All  governments  will  henceforward  be  alike  to  us.  Whig  or 
Tory,  and  the  rest  are  but  vestry-room  cries.  The  one  cause 
in  which  every  other  is  merged,  is  the  cause  of  the  People. 


BISMARCKISM 


Not  that  this  great  struggle  need  be  one  of  arms  and  of 
bloodshed.  It  is  essentially  a  moral  struggle ;  one  of  prin- 
ciples. The  needle-gun  has  beaten  down  the  army  of 
Napoleon,  but  it  cannot  beat  back  French  ideas ;  of  all  others, 
not  the  social  ideas  of  the  French  people.  Purged  in  the 
fire  of  this  crisis,  these  ideas  will  regain  new  purity  and  life. 
They  are  swaying  and  heaving  English  society.  Germany 
itself  is  honeycombed  with  them.  And  long  and  fierce  ere 
long  will  be  the  struggle  in  Germany  itself  between  Bis- 
marckism  and  Industrialism  —  between  blood  and  iron 
and  the  German  people.  But  whatever  else  may  be  the 
issue,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  real  spirit  that  is  ultimately 
to  triumph  after  this  frightful  catastrophe  will  not  be  a 
military  one.  In  spite  of  all  the  fighting,  in  spite  of  the 
deadly  hatred  of  race  begotten  by  this  contest,  and  the  un- 
dying spirit  of  revenge  and  pride  it  will  leave  behind,  the 
industrial  regime  is  antagonistic  to  the  military;  and  the 
increased  ascendancy  of  the  people  must  be  fatal  in  the  long 
run  to  militarism. 

There  is  much  in  this,  too,  very  worthy  of  thought  by 
our  own  governing  classes.  The  attitude  of  the  French 
Republic  and  people  under  the  German  yoke  has  sent  a 
thrill  through  the  English  workmen  greater  than  anything 
which  has  happened  since  1848.  They  are  watching  their 
own  rulers  with  ill-restrained  impatience  and  indignation. 
To  them  the  cause  of  labour  and  the  Republic  is  one  and 
the  same  all  over  the  world.  The  interests  of  English 
landlords,  of  British  merchants  and  shopkeepers,  of  Whig 
and  Tory  governments,  of  Liberal  or  Conservative  cabals, 
to  them  are  dust  in  the  balance.  They  are  loudly  and 
distinctly  calling  on  their  rulers  to  save  the  French  Republic 
from  extinction  by  German  invaders.  For  that  they  are 
ready  for  sacrifices  in  blood  and  money. 


34 


NATIONAL    AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 


One  thing  they  will  not  suffer.     They  will  not  see  their  gov- 
erning classes  shrinking  from  any  real  action  in  Europe,  and 
timidly  reducing  this  country  to  a  nullity,  whilst  feebly  patch- 
ing up  our  own  rotten  military  system  at  home  by  resorting  to 
the  device  of  tyranny  abroad.     A  real  reorganisation  of  the 
army  in  a  national  sense  is  yet  far  off.     Really  to  make  it 
such  an  army  as  the  Prussian  is  simply  impossible.     This 
English  nation,  at  any  rate,  will  never  be  drilled  into  Bis- 
marckism.     And   any   feeble    attempts   to   Prussianise   this 
country,  to  raise  a  conscription,  in  fact  —  to  force  the  work- 
ing people  into  the  ranks,  will  be  met  and  resisted  by  all 
and  every  means.     The  attempt  forcibly  to  enroll  English 
citizens  will  be  stopped  by  every  resource  known  to  a  people 
defending  their  personal  liberty  —  the  ultima  ratio  popidi 
not  even  excepted.     There  are  men  enough  in  this  country 
quite  capable  of  seeing  what  is  meant,  and  of  organising 
the  national  resistance.     To   attempt   such  a  plot   against 
all  the  traditions  of  English  liberty  would  be  the  end  of 
governing   class,    monarchy,    and    constitution.     No   blood- 
tax  will  ever  be  levied  in  English  homes. 
November  15,  1870. 


n 

THE  DUTY  OF  ENGLAND 

{January  17,  1871) 

The  following  Essay  was  written  during  the  Franco-German 
War  in  the  middle  of  January,  and  was  the  first  article 
in  the  Fortnightly  Review  of  February  18 ji  (vol.  ix.). 
At  the  time  of  writing  Paris  was  on  the  eve  of  capitulat- 
ing through  famine,  and  Gamhetta  was  calling  on  the 
country  to  continue  the  struggle.  The  writer  was  still 
sanguine  that  England  would  he  roused  to  take  a  part. 
He  and  his  friends  had  organised  a  great  meeting  of 
Trades  Unionists  in  St.  Jameses  Hall  in  support  of  the 
French  Republic  (January  10) ;  and  many  influential 
sections  of  English  society  joined  that  cause.  The  govern- 
ment of  Mr.  Gladstone  declined  to  interfere  in  any  way, 
as  may  be  read  in  vol.  ii.  of  the  Life.  Now  that  we  have 
the  Memoirs  of  all  the  chief  politicians  concerned,  English, 
German,  and  French,  the  writer  sees  no  reason  to  modify 
the  language  he  used  in  i8yi,  nor  can  he  admit  that  the 
policy  he  advocated  was  either  impracticable  or  unwise 
(igo8). 

The  true  question  which  this  war  presents  for  English- 
men to  answer,  is  not  whether  France  or  Germany  have 
done  most  to  provoke  each  other,  nor  whether  France  or 
Germany  have  the  larger  sum  of  wrongs  to  avenge,  nor 
whether  it  is  desirable  for  Germany  to  be  one  and  to  be 

35 


36 


NATIONAL    AND    SOCIAL    PROBLEMS 


powerful,  nor  yet  whether  much  that  is  vicious  be  not  mingled 
in  French  policy  and  the  French  character.  The  real 
question  is  none  of  these;  and  it  is  sophistry  only  which 
can  lead  us  off  upon  these  issues.  The  true  question  is  a 
very  plain  one.  It  is  this.  Is  it  for  the  interest  of  civilisa- 
tion, or  of  England,  that  France  should  be  trampled  on  and 
dismembered  by  Germany  ? 

I  say  the  former  are  all  false  issues,  and  have  little  to  do 
with  the  matter  before  us.  Let  us  grant  that  the  larger 
share  in  provoking  this  long-preparing  struggle  must  be 
laid  at  the  door  of  France ;  as  I  certainly  shall  grant  she 
wantonly  commenced  it.  Is  it  enough  for  a  nation  to  have 
wrongfully  entered  upon  war,  to  make  us  rejoice  at  seeing 
it  torn  in  pieces ;  rejoice  over  a  policy  which  must  hand  over 
Europe  to  discord  and  hate?  To  sum  up  the  historical 
wrongs  of  Germany  may  exercise  the  ingenuity  of  biographers ; 
but  are  politicians  ready  to  make  retaliation  the  new  key 
of  international  relations?  A  man  may  devoutly  desire 
the  unity  of  Germany,  without  finding  it  precisely  in  the 
smoking  ruins  of  Paris.  It  may  be  the  best  guarantee  of 
peace  that  Germany  should  be  powerful.  It  is  a  bold  leap 
from  that  to  welcoming  six  months  of  pillage,  fire,  and 
slaughter.  We  may  wish  to  see  Germany  both  safe  and 
strong,  without  caring  to  see  France  mangled  and  frantic 
with  despair.  We  never  deny  that  the  French  temper  has 
many  a  blot,  and  French  history  many  a  foul  page.  We 
may  even  hate  French  folly  and  vice.  What  nation  has 
not  its  own  follies  and  its  own  vices?  What  puling  Judas 
is  he  who  would  sneer  away  the  life  of  a  nation  by  these 
hypocrite's  laments?  We  have  never  yet  admitted  that 
the  vices  of  national  character  entitled  one  race  to  come 
forward  as  the  executioner  of  another,  to  wreak  its  hate  and 
fill  its  greed  in  the  name  of  national  morality.     We  have 


THE    DUTY   OF   ENGLAND  37 

ceased  to  regard  a  conquering  horde  as  the  chosen  avenger 
of  God,  or  national  disaster  as  the  same  with  national 
guilt. 

We  may  admit  all  these  propositions  of  the  apologists 
of  Prussian  invasion,  and  yet  the  case  is  not  answered,  nor 
even  touched.  Suppose  France  wrong  at  first,  to  have 
been  wrong  in  the  past,  to  have  been  and  to  be,  as  a  nation, 
foolish  and  guilty.  Suppose  that  the  unity  of  Germany 
is  the  greatest  of  human  goods,  and  its  supremacy  the  best 
hope  of  mankind;  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  the  long- 
drawn  torture  of  France,  with  the  firing  of  her  citizens, 
and  the  trampling  on  her  provinces  and  her  children  ?  The 
greatness  of  Germany  is  not  secured,  the  guilt  of  France  is 
not  cured,  by  dragging  out  a  brutalising  and  fiendish  war, 
until  agony  itself  seems  to  sustain  life  and  to  inspire  de- 
fiance. All  the  specious  grounds  on  which  some  still  try 
to  justify  all  this,  no  more  justify  this  war  than  they  justify 
Pandemonium.  There  is  but  one  true  question.  What 
good  end  requires  all  this  fire  and  this  blood?  Is  it  for  the 
interest  of  civilisation  that  France  should  be  trodden  down 
and  dismembered  by  Germany  ? 

To  say  that  France  is  being  trampled  on  and  dismembered, 
is  to  use  words  far  short  of  the  truth.  For  six  months  one- 
third  of  France  has  been  given  up  to  fire  and  sword.  For 
300  or  400  miles  vast  armies  have  poured  on.  Every  village 
they  have  passed  through  has  been  the  victim  of  what  is 
only  organised  pillage.  Every  city  has  been  practically 
sacked,  ransacked  on  system;  its  citizens  plundered,  its 
civil  officials  terrorised,  imprisoned,  outraged,  or  killed. 
The  civil  population  has  been,  contrary  to  the  usage  of 
modern  warfare,  forced  to  serve  the  invading  armies,  brutally 
put  to  death,  reduced  to  wholesale  starvation  and  desolation. 
Vast  tracts  of  the  richest  and  most  industrious  districts  of 


38  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

Europe  have  been  deliberately  stripped  and  plunged  into 
famine,  solely  in  order  that  the  invaders  might  make  war 
cheaply.  Irregular  troops,  contrary  to  all  the  practices  of 
war,  have  been  systematically  murdered,  and  civil  popula- 
,tions  indiscriminately  massacred,  solely  to  spread  terror. 
"*A  regular  system  of  ingenious  terrorism  has  been  directed 
against  civilians,  as  horrible  as  anything  in  the  history  of 
civil  or  religious  wars.  Large  and  populous  cities  have  been, 
not  once,  but  twenty,  thirty,  forty  times  bombarded  and 
burnt,  and  the  women  and  children  in  them  wantonly  slaugh- 
tered, with  the  sole  object  of  inflicting  suffering.  All  this 
has  been  done,  not  in  licence  or  passion,  but  by  the  calcu- 
lating ferocity  of  scientific  soldiers.  .^And,  lastly,  when  the 
last  chance  of  saving  Paris  was  gone,  and  it  became  a  matter 
of  a  few  weeks  of  famine,  they  must  needs  fire  and  shatter 
a  city  of  2,000,000  of  souls.        \\\ 

Let  us  remember  that  all  this  was  done  and  carried  on  for 
five  months  after  France  had  sued  for  peace  in  the  dust; 
and  had  offered  what  was  practically  everything  except 
her  national  independence,  and  the  honour  and  self-respect 
of  every  Frenchman.  It  is  well  known  that  there  were  no 
serious  terms  which  France  would  have  rejected  short  of 
dismemberment.  To  give  up  2,000,000  of  the  best  citizens 
of  France,  and  make  them  permanent  prisoners  to  Germany, 
is  what  no  nation  in  Europe  would  do  whilst  its  powers 
remained.  Let  Englishmen  quietly  contemplate  surrender- 
ing Sussex  and  Hampshire  to  an  invader,  to  be  permanently 
annexed  to  France.  This  is  what  Frenchmen  are  coolly 
exhorted  to  do.  But  it  was  much  more  than  this.  To  give 
the  possession  of  Metz  and  Strasburg,  the  Moselle  and  the 
Vosges,  to  united  Germany,  is  simply  to  make  France  her 
prisoner,  to  make  France  what  Piedmont  was  with  Austria 
in  the  Quadrilateral,  what  England  would  be  if  the  whole 


THE    DUTY   OF   ENGLAND 


39 


coast  from  Dover  to  the  Isle  of  Wight  were  made  permanently 
French  soil. 

And  because  Frenchmen  rejected  these  terms,  terms 
which  the  vilest  of  Englishmen  would,  in  their  own  case, 
turn  from  with  scorn,  Prussia  has  poured  on,  revelling  in 
this  orgy  of  blood.  In  politics  there  are  no  abstract  rights. 
All  matters  between  nations  are  a  balance  of  advantages. 
And  even  if  there  were,  on  the  side  of  Germany,  some  decent 
claim  for  what  they  sought,  humanity  will  brand  the  people 
that  insisted  on  that  claim  through  all  the  hideous  cost  which 
it  involved,  A  gambler  (to  pursue  their  favourite  metaphor) 
may  have  a  fair  claim  to  the  stakes  he  has  won ;  but  we  still 
call  him  a  murderer  who  deliberately  kills  the  loser  that  he 
may  seize  them.  The  language-boundary  may  seem  such 
an  obvious  arrangement  to  a  pedant  at  his  desk;  and  the 
strategic  frontier  may  run  glibly  off  the  journalist's  pen. 
One  nation  may  be  most  moderate  in  its  demand ;  and  the 
other  may  be  most  blind  in  its  resistance.  But  if,  in  the 
hard  proof  of  facts,  this  natural  boundary  or  this  moderate 
claim  can  be  won  solely  by  desolating  a  million  homes,  and 
by  turning  provinces  into  one  vast  charnel-house,  it  is  only 
the  tyrant  with  the  heart  of  steel  who  seeks  that  end  at  such 
a  cost. 

But  I  had  forgotten  "the  security"  and  ''the  permanent 
peace"  of  Germany!  The  security  of  Germany  which, 
unapt  for  war,  with  only  a  few  poor  fortresses  on  the  Rhine, 
and  but  a  million  of  mere  armed  citizens,  will  never  be  able 
to  rest  for  fear  of  France,  without  a  new  line  of  French 
fortresses,  strongholds,  and  mountain  passes.  She  will 
never  be  really  safe  till  she  has  2,000,000  of  Frenchmen 
writhing  under  her  grasp  on  her  French  border.  The  poor 
wolves  must  have  a  fold  to  protect  them  from  the  greedy 
sheep.     And  how  can  the  great  German  and  the  great  French 


40  NATIONAL    AND    SOCIAL    PROBLEMS 

nations  ever  dwell,  side  by  side,  in  unity  and  peace  hereafter, 
until  every  French  field  has  been  trampled  by  the  Uhlan, 
till  every  French  home  has  given  up  its  one  or  two  dead, 
or  at  least  smelt  the  petroleum  of  our  highly-cultivated 
troopers?  Once  plant  in  every  French  heart  a  feeling  that 
a  German  is  a  red  Indian  savage  on  a  scalping  party;  sow 
a  blood  feud  which  the  very  infants  may  suck  in  with  their 
mothers'  milk,  and  we  shall  have  ample  security  and  a  per- 
manent peace  evermore ! 

Can  we  doubt  that  the  real  object  of   Germany  is  the 
dismemberment    of   France?     I   know    that    the    apologists 
of  Prussia  here,  straining  out  the  last  dregs  of  captious  ob- 
jection, ask  us  sometimes,  with  an  air  of  honest  doubt,  how 
we  know  that  Bismarck  insists  on  the  dismemberment  of 
France ;    and  one  of  these  advocates  has  told  us,  almost 
indignantly,  that  if  he  thought  the  Prussian  had  taken  Metz 
(for  instance)   with  any  intention   of   appropriating  it  for 
himself,  he  for  one  would  be  the  last,  etc.,  etc.     To  this 
point  is  the  case  of  Prussia  reduced  !    How  do  we  know, 
forsooth,  that  Germany  insists  on  incorporating  all  Alsace 
and  at  least  half  Lorraine,  the  Vosges,  the  Moselle,  Strasburg, 
Metz,  and  a  string  of  French  fortresses,  the  whole  "language- 
boundary,"  as  the  cant  runs,  and  something  more,  to  be 
settled  by  Count  Moltke?    We  know  it  because,  whatever 
journalists  here  may  find  it  convenient  to  say,  every  utter- 
ance in  Germany,  official  and  semi-official,  combines  to  tell 
us  so.     We  all  know  now  how  completely  Count  Bismarck 
controls  and  inspires  the  whole  well-affected  press  of  Germany, 
and  muzzles  the  ill-affected;   how  officials  and  aspirants  to 
office  w^atch  his  every  look;   how  journalists  and  professors 
truckle  to  his  nod.     With  one  consent  they  all  tell  us  that 
Germany  must  have  at  least  all  this,  and  an  indefinite  some- 
thing more.     If  the  words  of  official  journals  and  publicists 


THE   DUTY   OF  ENGLAND  4I 

In  high  favour  are  worth  anything  when  they  assure  us  that 
Count  Bismarck  wants  nothing  but  a  united  and  peaceful 
Germany,  we  may  trust  them  not  to  misrepresent  him  when 
they  tell  us  he  wants  Alsace  and  Lorraine.  To  such  a  length 
has  the  belief  of  this  run,  that  Count  Bismarck  cannot  afford 
to  disappoint  it.  And  yet,  seeing  the  set  of  this  current, 
and  the  concurrence  of  all  who  were  supposed  to  represent 
him,  he  has  never  directly  or  indirectly  attempted  to  check 
it.  Whether  Count  Bismarck  demands  Alsace  and  Lorraine 
or  not,  it  is  plain  that  Germany  does,  and  believes  them  to 
be  hers  as  completely  as  if  peace  were  signed.  Men  of 
sense  judge  matters  of  politics  by  what  seems  reasonable 
on  a  balance  of  probabilities,  and  cannot  be  stopped  to  an- 
swer every  wild  suggestion  of  an  advocate  whose  case  is 
desperate. 

Whatever  Count  Bismarck  may  find  it  at  present  con- 
venient to  say,  or  not  to  say,  it  is  plain  to  any  one  of  common 
sense  that  Germany  most  undoubtedly  does  demand  large 
provinces  of  France,  several  of  her  chief  fortresses,  and  a 
long  line  of  strongholds.  If  not,  if  Germany  is  continuing 
the  war  for  only  some  small  object,  even  let  us  say  for  Stras- 
burg,  the  invasion  assumes  a  still  more  wanton  character. 
Practical  politicians  will  not  strain  the  excited  words  of 
M.  Jules  Favre  quite  literally,  pronounced  as  they  were  in 
September;  nor  can  they  doubt  that  after  an  unbroken 
succession  of  fresh  calamities.  Frenchmen  would  have  been 
inclined  to  terms  had  the  Germans  really  been  content  with 
anything  short  of  the  dismemberment  of  their  country. 
Had  Germany  no  such  end,  then  the  last  four  months  of 
horror  have  had  no  purpose  but  to  satisfy  the  lust  of  military 
glory.  But  as  every  utterance  of  those  Germans  who  had 
the  best  right  to  know  has  declared,  so  every  act  in  the 
dealing  with  the  conquered  provinces  has  proved,  that  the 


42  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

wrenching  off  most  vital  members  of  the  French  nation  is 
the  very  least  of  the  demands  of  Germany. 

It  may  well  be  that  Count  Bismarck's  ultimate  intentions 
are  not  yet  fully  known.  But  it  is  not  that  he  will  ask  less, 
but  a  great  deal  more,  than  has  yet  been  claimed  for  him. 
When  did  he  ever  yet  stay  his  hand  in  open  violence,  except 
that  he  saw  his  way  to  his  end  by  artifice?  If  he  gave  up 
forcing  on  the  Prussian  people  his  system  of  army  exten- 
sion, it  was  only  to  rouse  their  military  passions  more  fiercely 
by  corrupting  them  with  baits  to  their  vanity.  When  he 
closed  the  war  against  Denmark,  it  was  only  that  he  saw 
his  way  to  seizing  her  territory  by  treachery  and  fraud. 
When  he  made  peace  after  Sadowa,  it  was  because  he  saw 
that  secret  diplomacy  could  thenceforth  effect  the  rest  of 
his  programme.  Peace  or  war,  fraud  or  force,  are  with 
him  only  different  means  to  the  same  end  —  the  mili- 
tary aggrandisement  of  Prussia.  He  uses  both  alternately, 
always  in  the  same  onward  path.  Like  the  lion  in  the  fable, 
if  he  is  great  in  bringing  down  the  prey,  he  is  yet  greater 
in  securing  the  whole  of  it  to  himself  by  chicanery  or  threats. 
And  it  is  to  this  man,  as  false  and  as  insatiate  as  the  ideal 
of  Macchiavelli,  that  Europe  is  to  confide  for  wisdom  and 
moderation. 

It  is  but  too  true  that  we  have  not  Count  Bismarck's 
real  demands.  For  my  part,  I  should  wonder  if  the  world 
has  yet  heard  the  half  of  them.  His  enemies  as  yet  have 
found  that  to  make  peace  with  Count  Bismarck  is  as  hard 
a  bargain  as  to  continue  war  with  him ;  perhaps  even  a  harder. 
The  greatest  of  the  German  chiefs  loudly  declare  that  they 
will  be  satisfied  with  nothing  short  of  reducing  France  to 
a  second  or  a  third-rate  Power.  One  of  the  foremost  long 
since  explained  this  to  mean  that  she  was  to  be  placed  in 
the  position  of  Spain.     Others  use  the  phrase  "of  annihilat- 


THE   DUTY   OF  ENGLAND  43 

ing  the  power"  of  France.  The  "Red  Prince,"  as  they 
dehght  to  call  him  in  the  Mohican  dialect  of  the  camp, 
announced  his  intention  of  "destroying  the  power"  of  France. 
Now,  when  have  these  military  chiefs  not  kept  their  threats? 
Morally  speaking,  they  are  men  on  the  level  of  the  Black 
Prince,  Wallenstein,  or  Charles  the  Twelfth  —  relics  of  a 
past  age;  strong,  able,  born  soldiers;  of  an  insatiable  am- 
bition, and  scorning  everything  but  military  honour.  To 
them  the  annihilation  of  France  is  just  as  worthy  an  object 
as  it  was  to  Catherine  of  Russia  to  destroy  Poland  or  to 
crush  Turkey.  They  honestly  believe  themselves  capable 
of  it.  What  is  to  prevent  their  attempting  it  ?  The  Prussian 
soldier-caste  conceives  the  destruction  of  France  to  be  the 
most  glorious  of  all  achievements ;  and  the  Prussian  soldier- 
caste  is  absolute  master  for  the  present  of  the  German 
people.  Count  Bismarck  is  but  the  organ  of  that  caste, 
its  one  man  of  genius  who  has  seen  how  to  dress  up  that 
singular  mediaeval  figure  as  the  champion  of  modern  ideas, 
and  the  leader  of  the  people.  But  Count  Bismarck  has 
not  changed  the  lanzknecht  heart  within  that  caste;  it 
beats  fiercely  within  him,  too.  And  though  he  can  force 
its  tongue  to  talk  in  the  language  of  modern  statesmen,  its 
true  nature  is  to  be  found  in  men  to  whom  pity  is  unknown, 
and  progress  a  by- word,  men  between  whorn  and  modern 
civilisation  there  is  a  feud  as  deep  as  between  backwoodsmen 
and  Sioux.  These  are  the  men  —  no  boasters,  and  no  mad- 
men—  who  have  declared  in  tones  not  loud  but  deep,  for 
the  annihilation  of  France  as  a  great  Power. 

What  is  to  stand  between  these  men  and  their  end  ?  The 
intelligence  of  Germany?  But  every  one  who  knows  Ger- 
many has  seen  —  for  my  part  I  have  seen  for  twenty  years  — 
gathering  up  in  the  minds  of  the  literary  and  military  classes 
of  Prussia  a  hatred  of  France,  Frenchmen,  and  French  ideas 


44  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

more  deadly  than  anything  we  know  of  in  race-feuds.  And 
with  this  hatred  there  went  a  deep,  fierce  thirst  to  humble 
France  one  day  in  the  dust.  I  do  not  pretend  that  this  feeling 
existed  outside  the  soldier  and  the  academic  class.  In  both, 
I  believe,  it  was  based  on  mortified  pride.  Prussians,  con- 
scious of  their  wonderful  power  both  for  war  and  in  thought, 
were  stung  with  rage  when  they  saw  how  little  their  unap- 
proachable pre-eminence  was  recognised  in  Europe,  and  how 
much  French  egotism  and  versatility  had  carried  off  from 
them  their  legitimate  honours.  Be  the  cause  what  it  may, 
men  who  have  long  watched  this  intense  hatred,  existing,  I 
admit,  in  only  two  classes,  and  of  course  not  in  all  members 
of  them,  such  men  have  felt  and  insisted  for  years  that  the 
most  gigantic  war  in  history  must  be  the  issue  of  it. 

It  has  come ;  and  this  hatred  has  filled  its  maw,  and  has 
swollen  to  incredible  proportions.  What,  then,  is  to  stop  it 
from  working  out  its  avowed  end  —  the  annihilation  of  France 
as  a  great  Power  ?  The  Crown  Prince  ?  And  men  can  build 
all  their  hopes  on  a  life,  which  a  stray  Chassepot  bullet  may 
end,  to  give  us  for  twenty  years  the  regency  of  the  Red  Prince. 
Who  is  to  stop  it?  The  intelligence  of  Germany,  now  em- 
ployed in  inventing  apologies  for  every  act  of  aggression  ?  The 
good  sense  of  the  German  people?  —  But  the  German  people 
are  now  only  the  German  rank  and  file,  and  public  opinion  is 
insubordination.  The  Great  Powers  of  Europe  ?  —  But  they 
are  employed  in  doing  reverence  to  the  new  Emperor,  with 
the  ministers  of  "happy  England"  at  their  head.  Let  us 
rest  assured  that  the  Prussian  chiefs  will  give  up  their  project 
of  annihilating  the  power  of  France  for  one  cause  only  —  that 
they  find  it  impossible.  Till  they  find  it  impossible  they  will 
try,  in  spite  of  the  conviction  of  honest  burghers  in  Fatherland 
that  they  are  a  quiet  home-loving  race,  and  in  spite  of  goody- 
goody  platitudes  from  courtly  professors. 


THE    DUTY   OF   ENGLAND  45 

Count  Bismarck  has  certainly  not  told  us  his  ultimate  de- 
mands. They  will  include  all  that  has  yet  been  asked  for  in 
territory  with  a  large  addition  (perhaps  that  of  Nancy  and  the 
whole  of  Lorraine).  But  there  will  be  other  demands  not 
necessarily  of  territory  and  perhaps  not  immediately  disclosed, 
the  effect  of  which  will  be  to  leave  France  absolutely  at  the 
mercy  of  Germany.  Austria  is  now  of  less  account  in  Ger- 
many than  she  was  at  the  moment  of  peace,  and  Denmark  is 
also  of  less  account  in  the  Baltic  than  when  she  gave  up  the 
struggle.  Count  Bismarck  is  a  swordsman  who  gives  wounds 
from  which  his  adversaries  do  not  recover ;  but  from  which 
they  grow  weaker  and  weaker.  And  when  he  wipes  from 
his  sword  the  blood  shed  in  this  great  war,  it  will  be  to 
leave  France  permanently  crippled.  Who  or  what  is  to 
stay  him  ? 

Let  us  take  merely  the  already  announced  demands  of 
Prussia,  and  see  how  France  will  stand  at  the  end  of  the  war. 
There  will  first  be  an  enormous  war  indemnity.  Its  sum- 
total  will,  in  truth,  be  something  as  yet  unconceived.  It  will 
be  measured,  however,  not  by  the  demands  of  Germany,  but 
by  the  limit  of  what  it  is  possible  by  direct  or  indirect  means 
to  squeeze  out  of  France.  There  will  then  be  the  prostration 
of  France  by  the  exhaustion  of  the  war,  and  the  desolation  and 
famine  of  about  one-third  of  her  area.  She  will  probably  be 
compelled  to  cede  some  of  her  colonies,  and  may  possibly  be 
restricted  in  her  standing  army.  Metz,  Strasburg,  with  the 
whole  chain  of  fortresses  on  the  Moselle  and  Vosges  line  from 
Longwy  to  Belfort  will  form  the  rampart,  the  guns  of  which  are 
directed  upon  her  heart.  The  whole  of  the  French  will  thus 
be  added  to  the  whole  of  the  German  strongholds  along  the 
left  district  of  the  Rhine,  and  consolidated  into  a  complex 
chain  more  tremendous  than  anything  in  Europe.  It  will 
be  the  Austrian  Quadrilateral  multiplied  tenfold ;  a  line  for 


46  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

defence  preposterously  overdone ;  for  offence  almost  irresist- 
ible. This  vast  line  of  forts  will  hold  the  east  of  France  in  a 
vice.  Within  their  walls  100,000  men  may  easily  in  peace 
be  housed,  and  around  them  500,000  may  easily  in  war  be 
sheltered.  They  are  ten  days'  march  from  Paris.  And  be- 
tween them  and  Paris  not  a  single  fortress,  not  a  single  mili- 
tary dep6t,  and  scarcely  a  single  defensible  line  of  country 
exists. 

Now,  without  giving  too  much  importance  to  strategic 
frontiers,  it  is  impossible  to  be  blind  to  what  follows  when  a 
strong  power  posts  itself  in  a  menacing  position.  If  Antwerp 
in  French  hands  would  be  a  pistol  pointed  at  the  heart  of  Eng- 
land, if  Sebastopol  was  a  standing  menace  to  Constantinople, 
if  the  Quadrilateral  gave  Austria  the  command  of  North  Italy, 
then  France,  with  nothing  between  her  capital  and  this  vast 
strategic  line,  would  be  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  Germany. 
A  Power  which  commands  a  million  of  men,  with  the  over- 
whelming superiority  now  proved  in  a  hundred  victories,  pos- 
sessing along  the  left  side  of  the  Rhine  the  chief  of  all  the  great 
fortresses  of  Europe,  and  a  quadruple  quintuple  network  of 
strongholds  in  which  the  resources  of  nature  have  been  used 
by  the  skill  of  two  nations,  would  hold  France  in  the  hollow 
of  her  hand.  A  fortress  is  as  useful  for  the  most  part  for 
offence  as  for  defence,  and  with  the  whole  of  the  eastern  for- 
tresses of  France  turned  over  to  Germany,  and  the  heart  and 
capital  of  France  turned  naked  to  their  guns,  Germany  would 
be  as  absolutely  mistress  of  France  as  Austria  in  Mantua 
and  Verona  was  mistress  of  Lombardy  and  Venetia.  Hand 
over  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  and  France  stands  disarmed  —  the 
prisoner  of  armed  Germany.  It  is  easy  for  those  who  turn 
the  selfish  growl  of  the  tradesmen  into  a  sneer,  to  cry  out  with 
a  gibe  —  "What  are  two  or  three  departments  out  of  seventy? 
what  are  two  millions  out  of  forty?  now  you  are  beaten,  pay 


THE    DUTY   OF  ENGLAND  47 

up  the  stakes,  and  for  God's  sake  let  us  get  to  business!" 
So  he  with  the  money-bag :  but  politicians  of  common  sense 
know  that  this  is  no  mere  question  of  surrendering  broad 
provinces  or  even  of  giving  up  good  citizens.  It  is  not  a 
prince  losing  an  appanage,  or  a  nation  losing  a  subject  prov- 
ince. It  is  the  life  or  death  of  France  as  a  great  Power.  It 
is  her  independence  as  a  nation.  It  is  whether  she  shall  be 
one  of  the  Powers  of  Europe,  or  the  State  prisoner  of  Imperial 
Germany. 

"France,"  say  the  optimists,  "will  be  always  a  great 
Power,  come  what  may."  Perhaps  so;  but  not  if  the  Prus- 
sian chiefs  have  their  way.  The  wretched  juggle  about  the 
language,  and  the  old  possessions  of  the  Reich,  the  whole 
antiquarian  twaddle  about  Elsass  and  Lothringen,  form 
only  one  of  Bismarck's  tricks  to  amuse  the  bookworms; 
who,  good,  silly  souls,  are  flapping  their  wings  with  the  glee 
they  would  feel  if  some  one  turned  up  the  real  sword  of  Barba- 
rossa,  or  proposed  to  revive  the  worship  of  Odin.  "The  sword 
of  Barbarossa!"  cry  the  learned  geese,  "es  lebe  der  Kaiser! 
let  us  try  if  it  will  cut  off  men's  heads.  Oh,  beautifully ! 
See  how  they  fly  off,  and  how  the  corpses  writhe  !  Lieb 
Vaterland,  magst  ruhig  seyn !"  So  do  the  professors  rejoice 
exceedingly.  For  political  childishness  and  social  immoral- 
ity no  one  comes  near  your  true  Dryasdust.  So  throughout 
all  Germany  Teufelsdrockh,  with  immense  glee,  is  airing 
the  biographies  of  the  Imperial  vassals.  Then,  again,  all  the 
learned  strategic  stuff  about  the  line  of  the  Vosges,  and 
the  indispensability  of  this,  and  the  importance  of  that  to 
the  defence  of  Fatherland,  and  the  mysterious  references 
to  the  omniscient  Moltke,  are  just  another  amusement  for 
the  journalists  and  soldiers  at  home.  Mephistopheles,  who 
is  as  relentless  as  he  is  artful,  laughs  his  harsh  laugh.  Bah ! 
let  the  pedants  bring  home  their  lost  German  brothers,  with 


48  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

hoch-Teutsch  lays,  and  the  wiseacres  discuss  the  defensive 
powers  of  the  new  German  frontier;  are  the  real  chiefs  of 
Prussia  the  men  to  play  these  academic  pranks,  or  fight  for 
what  they  have  got  fifty  times  over?  Their  real  end  is  a 
very  plain  one  —  the  annihilation  of  France  as  an  indepen- 
dent Power.  Jugglery  about  language-boundaries  and  strate- 
gic frontiers  (in  its  defensive  sense)  will  soon  be  swept  aside, 
and  the  real  purpose  of  Prussian  policy  will  soon  be  disclosed 
—  such  a  settlement  as  will  leave  France  prostrate  before 
Germany.  Bismarck  swore  to  drive  Austria  out  of  Germany. 
He  has  done  it,  and  she  clings  still  struggling  to  its  borders. 
Bismarck  and  his  captains  have  sworn,  too,  to  drive  France 
(practically)  out  of  Europe.  And,  if  they  have  their  will, 
they  will  not  rest  till  they  have  done  it.  That  is  what  the 
language-boundary  and  the  Vosges  line,  in  sober  truth,  comes 
to  at  last ;  and  what  is  to  prevent  them  from  insisting  on  it  ? 
The  heads  of  the  military  caste  in  Prussia  feel  towards  France 
what  the  Roman  aristocracy  felt  towards  Carthage.  Delenda 
est  Carthago  is  their  policy,  and  old  Blucher  was  their  Cato. 
The  pedants  may  go  on  maundering  most  beautifully  about 
Teutonic  civilisation ;  but  the  caste  will  pursue  their  end  as 
coolly  as  if  the  said  pedants  were  actual,  as  well  as  meta- 
phorical, bookworms. 

The  most  dreadful  part  of  all  this  is  that  peace,  even  on 
any  terms  now  demanded  by  Germany,  is  not  a  peace,  but 
a  truce.  We  have  it  on  the  best  possible  authority,  that 
of  Count  Bismarck.  In  his  cynical  frankness,  he  told  us 
that  he  knew  that  France  would  renew  the  conflict,  and  he 
only  wanted  a  position  of  superiority  to  meet  it.  The  truth 
is  that  it  suits  neither  the  welfare  nor  the  policy  of  Prussia 
to  complete  the  destruction  of  France  at  once.  Place  her 
in  a  situation  of  overwhelming  mastery,  and  she  would  prefer 
to  take  her  own  time.     Prussia  did  not  swallow  Denmark 


THE   DUTY   OF  ENGLAND  49 

at  one  mouthful,  nor  drive  Austria  from  Germany  entirely 
in  the  seven  weeks'  war.  But  she  has  planted  herself  in 
such  a  position  that  she  can  deal  with  Denmark  or  deal  with 
Austria  much  as  she  pleases;  and  she  is  assuredly  about 
to  do  so.  With  such  a  settlement  as  Prussia  exacts  from 
France,  she  can  begin  again,  and  finish  her  task  whenever 
she  pleases.  There  was  a  first,  a  second,  and  a  third  par- 
tition of  Poland,  arranged  at  convenient  intervals,  without 
too  exhausting  efforts.  And  there  was  a  first,  and  a  second, 
and  a  third  Punic  War.  As  Rome  dealt  with  Carthage,  as 
Prussia  dealt  with  Poland,  and  as  she  has  since  dealt  with 
Austria,  so  will  Count  Bismarck  deal  with  France.  It 
might  be  too  hard  a  task,  Europe  might  be  alarmed,  if  all 
were  done  at  a  blow.  But,  once  place  Prussia  upon  the 
prostrate  body  of  disarmed  France,  and  the  rest  is  a  question 
of  time.  No  one  can  imagine,  even  in  the  most  maudlin 
hour  of  optimism,  that  France  can  long  endure  such  a  lot. 
Her  two  millions  of  oppressed  citizens,  her  sense  of  helpless- 
ness, and  the  intolerable  weight  of  humiliation,  will  goad 
her  in  some  evil  hour  to  a  fresh  desperate  effort.  She  will 
rush  to  arms  again  like  the  Poles,  or  the  Carthaginians, 
without  a  chance,  and  almost  without  a  hope;  and  with  a 
like  result.  A  nation  of  forty  millions  of  men  are  not  thrust 
from  their  ancient  place  in  the  world  by  one  war,  however 
crushing;  nor  are  races  nowadays  partitioned  and  annexed 
in  a  single  campaign,  however  triumphant.  The  seizure  of 
Silesia  was  a  splendid  feat  of  arms,  and  Austria  was  crushed 
for  the  time.  But  even  in  that  age  Frederick  well  knew 
that  it  was  but  a  truce,  to  be  followed  as  certainly  as  night 
follows  day  by  the  Seven  Years'  War.  And  France  is  more 
than  Austria,  as  Alsace  and  Lorraine  are  more  than  Silesia. 
And  so  Frederick's  successor  tells  Europe,  with  the  harsh 
laugh,  what,  indeed,  we  know,  and  hear  with  a  shudder, 


50  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

that  even  this  horrible  war  is  but  the  first  act ;    and  when 
he  makes  peace  it  will  be  nothing  but  a  truce/ 

The  prospect,  then,  which  the  statesmen  of  Europe  have 
before  them  is  this :  —  This  fearful  war  is  but  the  begin- 
ning of  an  epoch  of  war;  it  is,  in  fact,  but  a  first  campaign. 
A  new  Polish  question,  a  new  Venetian  subject-province,  is 
established  on  far  larger  proportions,  and  in  the  centre  of 
Europe.  The  population  to  be  torn  from  France  is  even 
more  patriotic  and  more  warlike  than  are  either  Venetians 
or  Poles.  And  certainly  France  is  stronger  than  Austria, 
and  occupies  a  more  central  position.  But  this  is  not  merely 
a  question  of  subjecting  a  province  to  foreign  rule ;  it  is 
exposing  the  nation  from  which  it  is  torn  to  permanent  help- 
lessness. It  is  easy  to  say  that  Austria  gave  up  Venetia, 
the  kingdom  of  the  Netherlands  gave  up  Belgium,  Italy 
ceded  Savoy,  and  Denmark  Schleswig-Holstein.  These 
examples  in  no  case  apply.  In  all  of  them  the  ceded  prov- 
inces were  not  a  source  of  strength,  but  of  weakness.  They 
lay  outside  the  true  area  of  the  nation  which  ceded  them, 
and  belonged  by  many  ties  to  the  nation  that  received  them. 
In  the  case  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  all  these  circumstances 
are  reversed.  They  form  an  integral  part  of  France,  socially, 
economically,  and  geographically ;  in  every  sense  except  in 
some  wretched  antiquarian  pretence  that  could  be  found  in 
any  case.  They  can  only  be  torn  from  France  by  the  sword, 
and  retained  by  oppression.  And  to  tear  them  from  France 
is  to  expose  her  to  standing  helplessness.  The  true  parallel 
to  the  case  is  simply  this :  —  What  would  England  be  if 
Hampshire  and  Sussex  were  annexed  to  a  foreign  country, 

*  We  all  know  now  how  this  danger  was  averted  —  or  perhaps  only  ar- 
rested —  by  the  marvellous  recovery  of  France,  and  largely  by  the  inter- 
position of  Russia.  We  know  how  a  renewal  of  the  war  in  1875  was  pre- 
vented by  the  act  of  the  C^ar  and  Queen  Victoria.  I  wish  I  could  think 
the  danger  now  passed  (1908). 


S 


A 


THE    DUTY   OF   ENGLAND  5 1 

whose  armies  were  posted  in  a  network  of  arsenals  and 
strongholds  along  their  entire  sea-coast. 

We  hear  it  thoughtlessly  said:  —  "Well,  other  nations 
have  ceded  provinces,  and  lost  territory ;  why  is  it  so  terrible 
for  France  to  do  the  like,  or  for  Frenchmen  to  change  their 
nationality?"  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  in  every  case  in 
this  nineteenth  century  in  which  provinces  have  been  ceded, 
with  the  exception  of  Nice  (which  is  yet  a  standing  menace 
to  Europe),  it  has  been  done  in  the  name  of  nationality, 
and  not  in  defiance  of  it.  Colonies,  alienated  provinces, 
and  the  like,  have  been  ceded;  but  in  no  single  case  has  a 
vital  and  integral  part  of  a  nation,  and  one  of  its  most  in- 
tensely national  centres,  been  cut  out  of  its  very  trunk. 
For  deliberate  violation  of  national  right  this  case  stands, 
therefore,  alone  in  the  history  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
or  paralleled  only  in  the  case  of  Poland.  It  is  not  the  cession 
of  a  province,  but  the  dismemberment  of  a  nation.  It  is 
annexation  on  a  scale  and  of  a  character  unexampled  in 
more  modern  times.  To  find  its  parallel  we  must  go  back 
to  other  centuries. 

Be  it  observed  that  the  sentiment  of  nationality  is  the 
birth  of  recent  times;  sprung,  in  fact,  from  the  Revolution. 
In  the  old  days  of  dynastic  wars  nations  in  our  sense  hardly 
existed,  or  existed  only  in  England  and  France.  The  prin- 
cipal kingdoms  consisted  of  bundles  of  duchies,  fiefs,  and 
principalities,  with  little  sense  of  national  coherence.  To 
transfer  them  from  one  sovereign  to  another  may  have 
weakened  the  power  of  the  ruler,  yet  it  was  but  a  small  shock 
to  the  feelings  of  the  population  transferred,  and  hardly 
any  to  the  other  lieges  of  the  sovereign  to  whom  they  ceased 
to  belong.  Cession  of  provinces,  as  the  result  of  war,  was 
then  a  dynastic  and  feudal  question,  and  may  have  had 
some  reason ;   for  national  rights  hardly  existed.     One  Ger- 


^2  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

man  savant,  in  that  spirit  of  grotesque  chicanery  which 
this  war  has  developed  in  that  ingenious  body,  has  told  us 
that  it  is  quite  immoral  to  end  a  war  without  cession  of  terri- 
tory. Others  have  deluged  us  from  their  note-books  with 
instances  from  the  history  of  the  House  of  Capet  or  the 
House  of  Hapsburg.  Antiquarian  rubbish!  The  intense 
spirit  of  nationality  has  revolutionised  these  matters  entirely. 
It  is  but  of  recent  birth,  but  it  is  now  one  of  the  prime  movers 
of  the  European  system.  Guai  a  chi  la  tocca.  Barbarossa 
may  indeed  awake,  but  if  he  venture  to  recast  Europe  with 
the  mediaeval  notions  with  which  he  went  down  into  his 
tomb,  more  especially  if  he  attempt  it  in  France,  democ- 
ratised and  nationalised,  and  in  the  enthusiasm  of  a  new 
Republican  spirit,  this  weird  phantom  of  a  dead  past  will 
be  plunging  the  nations  of  our  time  into  a  new  era  of  revo- 
lution and  war. 

A  very  eminent  historian  has  lately  put  forward  a  defence 
for  this  and  other  acts  of  the  Prussian  monarchy,  by  com- 
paring it  with  what  was  done  by  Plantagenet  or  Tudor  kings 
in  England,  and  by  the  House  of  Capet  in  France.  One 
would  think  it  was  only  necessary  to  be  an  historian,  to  set 
aside  the  principles  on  which  modern  nations  depend  for 
their  existence.  Why,  the  very  charge  against  the  Prussian 
dynasty  and  its  advisers  is,  that  they  are  carrying  into  modern 
policy  those  violent  and  unjust  practices  of  old  times,  which 
it  is  the  function  of  modern  civilisation  to  repudiate  and  to 
repress.  They  are  simply  Tudors  and  Capets  in  the  nine- 
teenth century;  and  that  is  what  the  nineteenth  century 
will  never  endure.  The  attempt  to  repeat  the  process  by 
which  dynasties  of  old  formed  nations  is  the  worst  of  all 
offences  now  against  the  rights  and  peace  of  nations.  It 
is  precisely  because  the  Prussian  monarch  belongs  to  an  era 
and  a  caste  which  has  learnt  nothing  and  forgotten  nothing. 


THE    DUTY   OF   ENGLAND  53 

that  he  is  outraging  the  conscience  of  modern  Europe,  and 
perpetrating  a  wrong  against  nations,  more  fatal  than  any 
other  since  the  revolutionary  wars,  and  against  which  the 
modern  world  must  remain  in  permanent  insurrection. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  position  of  England  at  the  close 
of  this  war.  France,  from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  will  be 
so  much  exhausted  and  humiliated,  that  independent  action 
in  Europe  would  be  in  any  case  impossible  to  her.  But 
that  she  is  feeble  will  be  the  least  part  of  the  case.  She 
will  be  so  completely  at  the  mercy  of  Germany,  that  for  the 
present  she  must  cease  to  count  as  one  of  the  great  Powers. 
When  diplomacy  has  finished  the  work  of  war,  she  will  not 
dare  to  profess  a  policy  contrary  to  that  of  Prussia.  She 
will  not  be  in  the  position  of  Russia  at  the  close  of  the  Cri- 
mean War,  exhausted,  but  powerful  and  independent.  She 
will  be  like  Poland  after  the  first  partition,  or  like  Piedmont 
after  Novara,  at  the  mercy  of  an  enemy  who  can  march  at 
any  moment  on  her  defenceless  capital.  She  must,  therefore, 
for  any  practical  purpose,  retire  from  the  councils  of  Europe, 
or  enter  them,  as  now,  for  the  purpose  only  of  making  her 
indignation  heard,  of  fomenting  discord,  or  of  grasping  at 
any  ally  at  almost  any  price. ^ 

The  problem  that  English  statesmen  have  to  face  is,  how 
to  maintain  our  position  in  Europe  when  France  has  ceased 
to  be  an  element  in  the  question.  Let  them  look  back  for 
one  or  two  generations,  and  weigh  the  importance  of  those 
interests  in  which  England  and  France  were  as  one.  Ever 
since  the  days  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  and  the  recovery  from 
the  great  spasm  of  the  Revolutionary  war,  no  fact  in  the 
history  of  Europe  has  been  more  marked  than  the  growing 

^  This  imminent  danger  was  averted,  first,  by  the  extraordinary  power 
of  recuperation  by  France,  a  power  which  astonished  and  alarmed  Bismarck, 
and  next,  by  the  strange  alliance  with  Russia  —  even  less  to  be  foreseen  — 
an  alliance  which  had  the  tacit  approval  of  England  (1908). 


54  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

tendency  towards  union  in  the  policy  of  France  and  England, 
In  spite  of  dynastic  or  ministerial  intrigues,  gradually  for 
forty  years  it  has  been  growing  more  clear  that  in  France 
and  in  England  the  weight  of  the  popular  feeling  marched 
onwards  in  parallel  lines,  and  that  France  and  England 
stood  out  as  the  guarantees  in  the  long  run  for  progress  and 
for  right.  England  and  France  were  felt  by  all  to  be  great 
powers,  second  to  none  in  material  strength;  the  one  sup- 
posed to  be  supreme  by  sea  and  the  other  by  land,  whilst 
they  were  the  only  states  in  Europe  where  the  liberal  feeling 
of  the  nation  had  strength  to  prevent  their  respective  Gov- 
ernments from  long  continuing  on  the  wrong  side. 

During  the  last  generation  there  have  been  four  great 
questions  of  European  importance.  In  all  of  these  France 
and  England,  in  the  main,  had  a  common  purpose.  In  the 
question  of  Turkey  and  the  East,  disfigured  as  their  action 
was  by  private  jealousies,  they  at  least  concurred  in  this: 
both  England  and  France  were  opposed  to  the  absorption 
of  Turkey  in  the  Muscovite  empire,  and  both  favoured  the 
status  quo  in  the  East  as  the  least  disturbing  issue  possible. 
In  the  key  of  the  English  policy,  the  French  on  the  whole 
agreed  —  that  the  Eastern  Mediterranean  should  not  be- 
come the  prey  either  of  anarchy  or  of  the  Czar.  During 
the  Crimean  War  that  alliance  was  deepened  and  confirmed ; 
and  since  the  taking  of  Sebastopol  there  has  grown  up  a 
tacit  acknowledgment,  too  often  not  justified  by  facts,  that 
in  the  long  run  England  and  France  were  the  representatives 
of  the  cause  of  national  independence,  in  the  Mediterranean 
as  well  as  in  the  Baltic. 

The  case  of  Poland  came  next.  And  to  whom  did  Poland 
look  in  spite  of  repeated  disappointment  —  to  whom  could 
she  look  —  but  to  England  and  to  France  ?  There  again 
the  policy  of  our  two  nations,  emphatically  of  both  peoples, 


THE    DUTY   OF   ENGLAND  55 

and  mainly  of  both  Governments,  has  worked  together. 
And  though  on  no  single  occasion  has  the  Government  of 
both  agreed  on  any  common  plan  of  active  intervention, 
their  assistance  has  not  been  wholly  in  vain;  and  their 
moral  support  has  enabled  the  Poles  to  maintain  their 
national  traditions  under  all  the  tyranny  of  the  Eastern 
despotisms. 

Throughout  the  whole  of  this  period  there  existed  the 
Italian  question;  and  here  again,  in  spite  of  the  insincere 
policy  of  Napoleon,  the  French  and  the  English  people 
heartily  concurred.  With  the  ruler  of  France,  and  sections 
of  Frenchmen,  selfish  interests  held  the  foremost  place; 
but  no  one  can  doubt  that  it  was  by  the  persistent  support 
which  the  French  and  the  English  nation  gave  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  national  right,  that  Italy  has  at  length  regained  her 
independence. 

Then  came  the  Danish  war,  the  first  beginning  of  that 
career  of  aggression  which  is  now  triumphing  in  France. 
Here  again  the  French  people  and  the  English  were  entirely 
as  one.  And  though  the  French  ministry,  but  lately  re- 
buffed on  the  Polish  question,  declined  (as  we  now  know)  to 
join  the  English  in  active  operations,  the  mere  fact  of  a  pro- 
posal of  the  kind  having  passed  between  them,  is  a  proof 
how  closely  the  two  countries  felt  the  cause  of  independence 
to  be  violated  by  the  attempt  to  partition  Denmark,  and 
how  much  their  joint  support  contributed  to  save  her  from 
utter  extinction. 

In  the  East  the  fleets  and  armies  of  France  and  England 
have  acted  even  more  directly  in  concert.  But  I  abstain 
from  making  any  use  of  the  arguments  to  be  found  in  the 
support  which  England  has  received  from  France  in  Asia. 
In  neither  case  do  I  believe  the  interference  to  have  been 
for  the  good  of  civilisation,  though  perhaps  it  was  rendered 


/ 


56  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

less  injurious  to  it  by  the  presence  of  two  rival  nations  in 
concert.  I  freely  admit  that  there  have  been  many  ques- 
tions in  which  the  French  nation  has  been  opposed  to  the 
English,  and  still  more  frequently  their  Government  to  ours. 
It  is  sufficient  to  point  out  that  in  the  four  principal  questions 
which  have  deeply  stirred  Europe  within  this  generation, 
the  French  nation  had  joint  interests  and  sympathies  with 
our  own,  and  were  actuated  by  the  same  principles  to  follow 
a  common  policy. 

Even  when,  as  is  too  true,  the  wretched  Government  of 
Napoleon,  and  at  times  the  French  people,  engaged  in  or 
tended  towards  a  course  fatal  to  progress  and  peace,  and 
hostile  to  our  common  traditions,  the  English  policy  and 
public  opinion  have  been  able  to  modify  and  control  those 
of  France  by  virtue  of  the  sense  of  our  many  common  inter- 
ests. In  the  Italian  question,  in  the  American  Civil  War, 
in  the  Danubian  questions,  in  the  Mexican  interference, 
and  even  in  the  Luxemburg  difficulty  in  1867,  where  the 
miserable  ambition  of  the  Imperial  dynasty  was  embarked 
on  a  retrograde  course,  the  moral  strength  of  England  has 
exercised  a  most  salutary  control,  and  gained  an  ultimate 
ascendancy  for  right,  by  virtue  of  its  being  felt  by  the  French 
people  to  represent  the  voice  of  an  honest  and  genuine 
friend.  Looking  at  it  broadly,  as  national  policy  alone  can 
be  looked  at,  and  seeking  only  for  what  is  fundamental,  a 
fair  mind  will  allow  that  the  co-operation  of  France  with 
England  has  been  a  solid  and  a  great  fact ;  that  the  alliance 
has  been  on  the  whole  a  real  thing,  and  an  alliance  in  the 
main  for  good. 

It  is  all  over  now ;  and  where  are  we  to  find  its  like  ?  On 
all  these  four  typical  questions  of  European  policy,  whilst 
France  at  heart  was  with  us  and  with  the  right,  Prussia, 
the  new  mistress  of  Europe,  was  against  us  and  with  the 


THE   DUTY  OF  ENGLAND  57 

wrong.  In  the  Crimean  War  she  threw  her  undisguised 
sympathies  and  her  secret  influence  on  the  side  of  Musco- 
vite aggression.  In  the  PoHsh  question  she  played  into  the 
hands  of  the  oppressors,  for  is  she  not  one  of  the  standing 
oppressors  herself?  In  the  Italian  question  she  joined  her 
cause  with  Austria,  and  declared  for  the  permanent  enslave- 
ment of  Italy  by  German  bayonets.  Nay,  more,  in  1859, 
she  declared  Venetia  a  strategic  question  for  Germany, 
though  for  her  own  ends,  in  1866,  she  found  means  to  sur- 
render it.  Of  the  Danish  question  it  is  needless  to  speak, 
for  she  was  the  author  and  head  of  that  wanton  spoliation. 
On  all  these  great  questions,  in  which  England  stood  forth 
with  France  as  the  guardian  of  right  and  respect  for  nations, 
she  will  find  herself  now  face  to  face  with  that  gigantic  Des- 
potism which  is  the  very  embodiment  of  the  wrong;  and 
she  will  find  herself  before  that  Power  —  alone.^ 

Condemn,  as  we  may,  the  national  faults  of  France, 
denounce,  as  we  please,  their  pretension  to  supremacy  in 
Europe  (a  pretension  exactly  equivalent  to  that  which  Eng- 
land makes  to  maritime  supremacy),  we  must  still  feel  that 
in  no  other  nation  does  there  exist  a  public  opinion  so  akin 
to  our  own,  and  at  the  same  time  so  completely  in  the  ascend- 
ant. The  heart  of  the  great  French  nation  beats  with  that 
of  our  own,  and  we  feel  its  pulsations  in  every  workshop 
and  every  cottage  of  the  land.  The  true  modern  life  breathes 
in  both  of  us  equally:  the  same  generous  sympathies,  the 
same  faith  in  progress,  the  like  yearning  for  a  social  regenera- 
tion of  the  West.  And  France,  we  feel,  has  been  truly  passed 
through  the  revolution :  the  social  rule  of  caste,  the  dead- 
weight of  feudal  institutions,  the  organised  reaction,  has 

'  Happily,  in  the  present  reign  things  are  changed.  The  fears  of  1871 
are  modified  —  not  extinct  —  in  1908.  The  doubtful  hopes  of  1871  are 
almost  now  real  facts  (1908). 


58  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

passed  away  from  them,  far  more  than  from  us,  and  certainly 
far  more  than  from  any  other  people  in  Europe.  Anarchy 
and  tyranny  in  turn  afflict  them  for  a  season ;  but  we  know 
that  in  France  the  reign  of  neither  can  be  long.  We  feel 
that  in  spite  of  repeated  failures  and  errors,  and  the  mis- 
deeds of  rulers,  there  still  lives  the  great  French  people, 
animated  by  noble  ideas,  the  slaves  of  no  caste  and  of  no 
system,  who  in  the  long  run  are  always,  and  are  worthy  to 
be,  the  masters  of  the  destinies  of  France. 

It  is  so  now,  and  it  has  been  so  in  the  past.  The  true 
history  of  France,  seen  in  the  light  of  a  broad  survey  of  the 
annals  of  mankind,  is  the  history  of  a  nation  which  has  been 
in  the  van  of  progress.  She  who  led  Europe  in  the  Crusades 
to  resist  the  aggression  of  the  Saracen;  she  who  built  up 
the  great  central  monarchy  in  Europe  out  of  feudal  chaos, 
and  inaugurated  the  institutions  of  modern  government 
out  of  the  antique  armoury  of  chivalry ;  she  who  kept  at 
bay  the  bigotry  and  tyranny  which  once  menaced  Europe 
from  Hapsburg  ambition,  rose  out  of  a  century  and  a  half 
of  restless  thought  and  evil  policy  into  the  Revolution,  which, 
with  all  its  crimes,  was  the  new  birth  of  modern  society. 
In  the  true  philosophy  of  history,  it  is  France  who  (often 
backsliding,  and  often  the  enemy  of  right)  has  been  in  the 
main  foremost  in  the  cause  of  civilisation.  Let  us  leave  it 
to  half-crazy  pedants  to  represent  her  as  the  evil  destiny  of 
nations.  Men  who  have  grown  purblind  and  anti-social 
whilst  working  deep  down  in  the  stifling  mines  of  German 
records,  see  the  good  spirit  of  mankind  in  the  wild  and  val- 
orous doings  of  panoplied  Rittmeisters ;  of  the  Grafs  and 
Kaisers  who  prolonged  the  Middle  Ages  down  into  the  six- 
teenth or  the  seventeenth  century.  The  good  sense  of 
mankind  has  long  agreed  that  the  great  French  nation  holds 
a  precious  part  in  the  history  of  civilisation ;   a  part  which 


THE   DUTY   OF   ENGLAND  59 

she  held  of  old,  and  holds  still :    her  place  no  other  can 
supply.* 

We  need  not  thereby  deny  the  great  and  noble  qualities 
of  other  races  in  Europe,  much  less  of  the  massive  and  ener- 
getic German  people.  But  the  good  sense  of  Englishmen 
is  agreed  that  nowhere  (for  America  distinctly  stands  aloof 
from  Continental  questions)  do  they  find,  as  they  do  in  the 
French,  a  people  combining  the  same  sympathies  and  inter- 
ests as  their  own,  with  so  high  a  power  of  giving  them  effect. 
How  can  the  new  German  Empire  supply  that  place  ?  How 
can  the  free  and  peaceful  policy  of  England  look  for  its 
right  hand  to  the  Prussian  dynasty  and  its  military  chiefs? 
The  Hohenzollern  monarchy  has  traditions  more  unchanged 
and  rooted  than  any  house  in  Europe.  They  are  traditions 
of  national  aggrandisement,  of  military  power,  of  royal 
prerogative,  and  divine  right.  It  represents,  and  is  proud 
of  representing,  the  despotic,  warlike,  retrograde  forces  of 
Europe.  The  key  of  its  policy  has  been  common  cause 
with  Russia.  Its  aim  has  been  to  broaden  the  foundations 
of  its  own  ascendancy.  Not  a  single  liberal  movement  in 
Europe  has  ever  found  in  it  a  friend ;  not  one  service  to 
civilisation  or  to  peace  can  it  boast.  Its  great  pride  has  been 
that,  alone  of  the  five  great  Powers,  it  has  upheld  unbending 
the  old  royalty  and  chivalry  as  it  existed  before  the  Revolu- 
tion. Such  is  the  Power  with  which  the  Parliamentary 
Ministers  of  this  free  English  nation  are  to  form  their  future 
alliances,  or  to  whose  will  they  are  to  bow  in  submission. 
The  sacred  Ministers  of  "happy  England"  do  not  lift  up 
the  eyes  to  dream  of  an  alliance  with  the  successor  of  Bar- 
barossa;    but  they  are  offering  him  their  homage  at  Ver- 


'  It  has  needed  more  than  thirty  years  for  English  statesmen  thoroughly 
to  realise  this.     Events  in  the  late  decade  have  forced  it  on  them  (1908). 


6o  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

sailles,  as  if  the  House  of  Guelf  were  one  of  the  mediatised 
princes/ 

Optimists,  with  a  tincture  of  German  literature,  are  fond 
of  assuring  us  that  however  little  hope  civilisation  can  find 
in  the  Hohenzollern  dynasty,  the  great  German  people  will 
set  all  right  in  their  own  good  time.  Far  be  it  from  us  to 
deny  the  admirable  qualities  of  the  German  people,  more 
especially  their  high  cultivation  of  all  sorts,  and  their  splen- 
did intellectual  gifts.  Professors,  with  a  naive  enthusiasm, 
rehearse  the  tale  of  Teutonic  literature,  science,  and  art; 
grow  maudlin  over  the  domestic  virtues  of  the  German  home ; 
and  celebrate  it  as  the  nursery  of  the  best  of  fathers  and 
the  truest  of  friends.  Well  and  good ;  but  the  question  is, 
what  has  the  Prussian  dynasty  done  for  the  peace  of  Europe  ? 
A  race  may  have  the  highest  intellectual  and  personal  gifts, 
and  yet  not  as  a  nation  have  consciously  assumed  any  great 
international  function.  After  all,  the  value  of  a  nation  in 
the  common  councils  depends  on  its  social  forces,  on  its 
consciousness  of  public  duties,  rather  than  on  its  intellectual 
brilliancy.  In  their  later  ages  the  Greeks,  with  their  match- 
less mental  gifts,  were  of  almost  no  account  as  a  nation; 
whilst  the  Romans,  in  cultivation  far  their  inferiors,  were 
foremost  by  the  ascendancy  of  their  national  genius.  The 
real  strength  of  a  nation,  especially  in  these  days,  consists 
not  in  its  achievements  in  science  or  art,  but  in  the  degree 
to  which  its  national  will  can  command  the  sympathies  and 
give  shape  to  the  wants  of  the  age.  This  is  now  the  only 
claim  which  a  nation  can  possess  to  the  supremacy  amongst 
nations.  And  it  is  this  which  Germany  is  yet  too  inorganic, 
too  much  encumbered  with  the  debris  of  the  past,  and  too 
little  conscious  of  national  duty,  reasonably  to  assert. 

Worthy  and  enlightened  souls  as  the  good  German  burgh- 

^  We  sing  a  very  different  song  to-day  (1908), 


THE   DUTY   OF  ENGLAND  6x 

ers  are  in  many  relations  of  life,  socially  and  politically  they 
are  what  we  in  the  West  of  Europe,  or  what  Americans, 
call,  decidedly  backward.  They  have  a  wonderful  army, 
a  consummate  administration,  a  high-pressure  educational 
machinery,  an  omniscient  press,  and  a  number  of  other  sur- 
prising social  productions,  but,  with  all  that,  they  have  not 
the  true  political  genius.  They  still  live  under  a  grotesque 
medley  of  antiquated  princelets,  who  are  not,  like  our  mon- 
archy and  aristocracy,  modernised  into  the  mere  heads  of 
society,  but  are  living  remnants  of  feudal  chieftainship. 
The  rule  of  these  princes  still  rests  on  divine  right,  on  vassal 
devotion,  and  military  subordination.  It  is  buttressed  round 
by  the  serried  ranks  of  a  social  hierarchy,  also  feudal  in  its 
pretensions  and  in  its  strength,  not  like  our  own,  modernised 
and  transformed  to  the  uses  of  a  democratic  society,  but 
standing  in  all  the  naked  antiquity  of  its  preposterous  pride. 
Society,  therefore,  in  Germany,  is  heavily  oppressed  by  the 
superincumbent  mass  of  strata  upon  strata  of  old-world 
orders  and  venerable  institutions,  habits,  and  ideas,  of  which 
a  great  free  and  progressive  people,  as  we  here  understand 
it,  would  never  endure  the  weight. 

There  is,  therefore,  in  Prussia  no  true  public  opinion. 
Politics  are  discussed  with  unfathomable  profundity,  and 
the  press  peers  into  public  affairs  with  well-regulated  curi- 
osity; but  for  true  influence  on  the  policy  of  Prussia  the 
people  of  Prussia  count  nothing.  An  eminent  encomiast 
of  the  German  Empire  has  but  recently  acknowledged  that, 
great  as  the  proportions  of  the  new  edifice  will  prove,  it  will 
still  want  some  of  the  modern  improvements  of  the  state 
fabric.  It  will  not  be  (of  course)  a  constitutional  affair, 
it  is  not  intended  to  be  a  parliamentary  government,  there 
is  no  idea  of  having  ministerial  responsibility,  or  of  public 
opinion  controlling  the  army  or  the  finances  of  the  state. 


62  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

For  my  part  I  am  not  enamoured  of  our  present  form  of 
parliamentary  government ;  but  I  do  maintain  that  a  govern- 
ment which  is  in  no  sense  to  be  the  organ  of  public  opinion, 
is  not  a  free  and  not  a  progressive  government.  The  Prus- 
sian regime  is  not  one  which  has  passed  beyond  a  parlia- 
mentary system,  but  one  which  has  never  reached  it.  It 
looks  upon  the  voice  of  the  nation  as  Tudors  or  Stuarts 
looked  at  it,  as  something  which  may  offer  respectful  com- 
ments, but  is  never  to  exercise  control.  This  is  the  ideal 
of  government  which  accords  with  every  tradition  of  the 
house  of  Hohenzollern,  which  is  maintained  by  the  yet  un- 
shaken strength  of  a  social  system  pledged  to  defend  it  by 
pride  as  much  as  by  interest,  which  the  middle-class  Prussian 
accepts  by  every  habit  of  his  nature,  and  worships  with 
instinctive  idolatry.  It  will  be  a  revolution  only  that  can 
shake  it. 

But  the  true  character  of  this  Hohenzollern  dynasty  is 
determined  by  that  "peculiar  institution"  of  Prussia,  the 
Junker  class.  It  is  a  phenomenon  to  which  no  parallel 
exists  in  Europe,  a  genuine  aristocratic  military  caste.  It 
is  not  like  our  own  aristocracy,  rich,  peaceful,  and  half- 
bourgeois.  It  is  not  like  the  French  Imperial  army,  a  mere 
staff  of  officers,  with  no  local  or  social  influence.  It  is  not  like 
the  Spanish  order  of  Grandees,  an  effete  body  of  incapables. 
It  is  an  order  of  men  knit  together  by  all  the  ties  of  family 
pride  and  interest;  with  an  historic  social  influence;  with 
a  high  education,  and  a  strong  nature  of  a  special  sort ;  rich 
enough  to  have  local  power  both  in  town  and  country;  and 
yet  so  poor  as  to  depend  for  existence  on  the  throne  —  and 
with  all  this,  devoted  passionately,  necessarily,  to  war.  It 
is  a  caste,  which  an  aspiring  dynasty  has  moulded  out  of 
the  Ritters  and  Grafs  of  mediaeval  Germany.  The  Williams 
and  Fredericks,  with  their  strong  hand,  have  taken  the  fierce 


THE   DUTY   OF  ENGLAND  63 

old  lanzknecht  and  his  children,  given  him  a  scanty  manor 
and  a  soldier's  pension,  drilled  him  into  the  best  soldier  in 
the  world,  tutored  him  in  the  absolute  science  of  destruction, 
given  him  two  watchwords — "King"  and  "God"  —  and 
kept  him  for  every  other  purpose  a  simple  mediaeval  knight. 
He  is  now  the  ideal  of  the  scientific  soldier,  always  a  gallant, 
often  a  cultivated  man,  but  in  this  industrial  and  progressive 
age,  an  anachronism.  Scratch  the  Junker,  and  you  will 
find  the  lanzknecht.  We  have  nothing  to  compare  with 
him,  though  he  reminds  one  a  little  of  the  Rajpoot  caste 
in  Oude,  or  the  Japanese  Daimio  and  his  Ronins.  The 
last  time  these  islands  saw  his  like,  was  when  Charles  Ed- 
ward led  his  Highland  chieftains  on  their  raid.  The  dififer- 
ence  is,  that  the  Junker  is  a  social  and  political  power,  civ- 
ilised in  all  the  material  sides  to  the  last  point  of  modern 
science.  Morally  and  socially,  in  all  that  we  look  for  in 
peace  and  progress,  he  is  as  abnormal  and  foreign  an 
element  as  if  Fergus  Mclvor  were  amongst  us  with  his 
claymore. 

It  was  the  fashion  (not  unnaturally)  to  treat  this  order  as 
of  small  political  account.  But  they  have  now  thrown  up 
their  man  of  genius,  they  are  the  true  masters  of  the  situa- 
tion, and  they  have  embarked  their  King  on  a  new  career, 
in  which  he  will  be  unable  to  stop.  Count  Bismarck  has 
found  how  this  caste  may  make  itself  a  necessity  for  the 
nation,  how  it  can  step  forward  as  the  right  arm  to  work  out 
the  national  dream,  and  in  the  name  of  Nationality  and 
Peace  may  found  a  new  military  supremacy.  He  has  done 
with  profounder  craft  what  Napoleon  did  at  the  close  of  the 
last  century,  and  has  debauched  the  spirit  of  patriotic  de- 
fence into  a  thirst  for  glory  and  domination.  Who  thought 
in  1792  that  the  acclaims  of  Frenchmen  for  universal  philan- 
thropy  (more  passionate  and  real  than  those  of  German 


64  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

eruditi  in  1870)  were  destined  to  glide,  step  by  step,  into  the 
sanguinary  vanity  of  the  Napoleonic  wars?  At  every  move 
in  the  game  of  ambition,  the  self-love  of  the  people  and  the 
degradation  of  the  army  grew  with  an  equal  growth.  Like 
Napoleon,  Bismarck  must  go  on,  feeding  an  Empire  of 
military  supremacy  by  fresh  pretensions. 

The  situation  is  so  unreal  that  it  must  be  sustained  by 
further  crimes.  The  Empire,  threatened  already  by  the 
people,  must  rest  on  the  vast  soldier  caste ;  to  reward  and 
stimulate  that  soldier  caste,  fresh  aliment  must  be  found 
for  its  soldier  pride.  Russia,  Austria,  France,  must  some 
day  look  askance,  even  if  our  merchants  still  smirk  before 
the  new  Empire,  with  a  tradesman's  bow.  To  maintain 
an  attitude  founded  upon  wrong,  fresh  wrongs  must  be  ven- 
tured. The  weight  of  the  new  Despotism,  threatened  from  its 
birth  both  at  home  and  abroad,  must  tell  on  the  deluded  Ger- 
man people.  And  to  repress  their  opposition,  their  national 
vanity  must  be  fed  with  fresh  stimulants,  or  their  efforts 
swallowed  up  in  a  new  convulsion.  Bismarck  plays  with 
Fatherland  to  the  German  burgher,  as  Napoleon  I.  played 
the  Coalition  to  the  bourgeois  of  France,  or  Napoleon  III. 
the  Spectre  Rouge.  As  to  the  chiefs  of  the  German  army, 
and  its  whole  officer  class,  war  is  their  profession,  and  their 
social  monopoly.  They  no  more  desire  peace  than  the 
lawyer  desires  to  close  courts  of  justice,  or  the  Roman  patri- 
cian desired  to  close  the  Temple  of  Janus.  A  military 
Empire  now  has  but  one  career  to  run  —  that  of  Napoleon 
I.  —  that  of  Napoleon  III.  Those  states  who  take  the 
sword  for  their  title,  must  perish  by  the  sword. 

The  new  Empire  of  Germany  is  thus,  in  its  origin,  a  menace 
to  Europe.  The  house  of  Hohenzollern,  with  its  traditions 
of  aggrandisement,  with  its  consummate  bureaucratic  ma- 
chinery, and  its  bodyguard  of  a  warlike  caste,  can  never  be 


THE    DUTY   OF   ENGLAND  65 

the  titular  chief  of  peaceful  industrial  German  kingdoms. 
It  is  no  case  of  chance  personal  despotism,  or  mushroom 
revolutionary  adventurer.  It  is  a  great  power,  v^^hose  roots 
go  deep  into  every  pore  of  the  tw^o  upper  classes  of  German 
society.  It  is  arbitrary,  military,  fanatical.  In  one  v^ord, 
it  is  the  enemy  of  modern  progress.  Though  not  repre- 
senting the  German  people,  it  has  debauched  and  masters 
the  German  people.  Six  months  of  this  gigantic  v^^ar  have 
turned  the  flower  of  the  German  citizens  into  professional 
troopers.  The  very  fact  that  they  have  as  a  nation  submitted 
to  the  military  yoke,  the  fact  that  every  German  is  a  soldier, 
is  itself  a  proof  of  a  lower  type  of  civilisation,  and  marks 
them  as  a  nation  capable  of  becoming  a  curse  to  their  neigh- 
bours. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  this  new  power  has  any 
distinct  vision  of  further  conquests,  or  universal  dominion. 
It  is  quite  sufficient  calamity  to  Europe  that  such  a  power 
should  possess  paramount  supremacy.  It  may  be  the  good 
German  souls  are  right,  and  that  neither  they  nor  the  Em- 
pire, which  is  another  thing,  mean  any  harm.  But  why 
are  the  nations  to  depend  for  existence  on  the  forbearance 
of  their  mighty  neighbour?  And  if  we  are  safe,  are  all  the 
smaller  states  safe  ?  The  one  thing  which  is  now  the  dream 
of  the  North  German  is  a  great  navy  and  power  at  sea.^ 
To  this  end  the  very  friends  of  Prussia  admit  that  Continental 
Denmark  is  necessary  for  her.  The  inevitable  result  of 
such  a  career  as  that  of  Prussia  is,  that  she  must  seek  to  be 
the  mistress  of  the  Baltic.  She  will  begin  by  coercing,  and 
end  by  absorbing  all  who  stand  in  her  way.  As  to  Holland, 
every  step  in  affairs  brings  her  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
inevitable  fate.     And  England  will  yet  come  to  see  that  she 

'This  forecast  of  1871  has  a  very  different  meaning  in  1908.  In  1871 
the  German  navy  was  a  quantiie  negligeable. 


66  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

must  Stand  alone  to  defend  the  existence,  to  guarantee  the 
independence  of  those  industrious,  friendly  kingdoms  along 
the  northern  seas,  or  consent  to  see  them  made  the  instru- 
ments of  a  new  and  far  nearer  Russia. 

In  the  centre  and  South  of  Europe,  Prussia,  if  this  war 
close  with  her  undisputed  triumph,  can  arrange  everything 
at  her  own  good  pleasure.  The  question  of  the  Danube, 
the  very  existence  of  Turkey,^  hang  upon  her  favour,  and 
will  be  determined  by  her  interests.  For  as  the  first-fruits 
of  the  new  supremacy,  Austria,  who  at  first  was  calling  out 
for  English  support,  is  for  very  life  drawing  near  in  obse- 
quious deference  to  the  conqueror.  Italy  may  at  any  mo- 
ment be  ordered  to  restore  or  to  satisfy  the  Pope.  And 
Switzerland  finds  herself  surrounded  by  a  new  danger. 
With  a  power  so  tremendous,  and  an  ambition  so  ruthless, 
as  that  which  Prussia  has  exhibited,  everything  is  possible, 
and  every  nation  is  unsafe.  But  the  matter  for  us  is  not  so 
much  whether  Prussia  will  overrun  Europe,  or  swallow  up 
this  or  that  smaller  nation.  All  that  is  for  the  future;  but 
what  is  in  the  present,  our  actual  calamity,  is  this:  the 
greatest  shock  of  this  century  has  been  given  to  the  principle 
of  national  rights;  the  black  flag  of  conquest  has  been 
unfurled  by  a  dominant  power ;  one  nation  has  gained  a  su- 
premacy in  arms  which  puts  the  security  of  every  other  at 
her  sufferance,  and  that  a  nation  directed  by  a  policy  against 
which  every  free  people  is  in  permanent  revolt. 

Such  is  the  result  which  an  English  Government  has 
watched  gathering  up  for  six  months,  now  with  an  air  of 
Pharisaical  neutrality,  now  with  a  flood  of  pulpit  good  ad- 
vice. European  politics  form  a  world  in  which  the  forces 
are   tremendous.     To   cope   with   them   are   needed   great 

'  The  Sultan  has  long  found  the  German  Empire  his  best  —  his  only 
friend.     Thus  secured,  he  has  a  free  hand  in  crime  (1908). 


THE   DUTY  OF  ENGLAND  67 

insight  and  resolute  natures,  and  not  fluent  tongues.  States- 
men need  something  to  deal  with  them  more  solid  than  pretty 
essays ;  they  can  be  touched  only  by  deeds,  and  not  by  words. 
No  nation  can  stand  apart,  gaping  on  in  maudlin  hymns  to 
its  own  exceeding  good  fortune,  or  pouring  out  its  eloquent 
laments  over  the  naughtiness  of  its  neighbours.  If  the 
foundation  of  a  great  military  empire,  overshadowing  all 
Europe,  be  in  truth  a  good  thing,  let  us  make  it  the  new 
basis  of  our  foreign  policy,  and  not  crawl  like  mere  courtiers 
to  the  conqueror's  footstool.  But  if  it  be  a  bad  thing,  and 
a  danger  to  us  and  to  the  common  peace,  by  all  the  traditions 
of  the  British  race  let  us  throw  our  whole  force  to  prevent 
its  triumph.  Act ;  for  act  you  must ;  to  stand  still  is  to  be 
on  its  side.  Act  with  your  moral  force,  if  you  please,  since 
we  are  told  that  England  has  no  physical  force  left;  act 
even  with  your  moral  force,  for  that  may  yet  be  something. 
Have  a  policy,  declare  it,  and  act  on  it. 

It  is  impossible  to  be  morally  neutral.  If  you  mean  well 
to  the  conqueror,  stand  up  and  preach  sermons  upon  peace ; 
for  that  is  to  truckle  to  the  stronger.  If  you  do  not  see  his 
triumph  with  delight,  you  must  show  him  so  with  something 
stronger  than  affectionate  remonstrance  or  copy-book  ex- 
hortations to  keep  the  Ten  Commandments.  Nations  in 
this  wicked  world  are  seldom  amenable  to  moral  lectures, 
and  a  nation  flushed  with  glory  and  ambition  can  be  touched 
by  nothing  but  the  fear  of  retribution.  When  England 
stands  by,  and  sees,  without  moving,  the  whole  face  of  Eu- 
rope transformed  and  a  new  principle  enthroned  amongst 
nations,  she  is  virtually  its  accomplice.  A  great  nation, 
in  spite  of  itself,  must  play  a  part.  It  cannot  stand  by, 
like  a  field-preacher,  at  a  street-fight,  crying  out  with  benevo- 
lent imbecility,  —  "My  friends,  keep  clear  of  those  wicked 
men!    Wicked  men,   shake  hands  and  be  friends!"    To 


68  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

offer  good  counsels  to  Prussia  is  to  become  her  plaything., 
or  her  parasite.  You  might  as  well  throw  tracts  and  hymn- 
books  at  a  tiger. 

"What  can  we  do?"  cries  that  cynical  No-Policy  with 
which  the  governing  classes  have  contrived  to  gild  and  to 
satisfy  the  gross  selfishness  of  the  trader.  "What!"  sneers 
the  organ  of  the  money-dealers,  "are  we  for  the  balance  of 
power  and  intervention  in  this  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century?"  If  to  have  national  interests  and  duties,  and  to 
act  for  the  maintenance  of  those  interests,  and  in  defence  of 
rights,  if  this  be  intervention,  it  has  not  yet  ceased  to  be  the 
policy  of  this  country,  and  let  us  trust  it  never  will.  England 
has  continually  intervened  when  it  seemed  to  be  her  interest 
and  her  right.  She  intervened  in  1854  to  protect  Turkey 
from  absorption ;  she  is  intervening  at  this  moment  for  the 
same  end ;  she  intervened  but  the  other  day  to  preserve 
Belgium.  She  intervened  persistently  and  effectively  against 
the  retrograde  oppression  of  the  old  Austrian  empire.  Her 
policy  in  Asia  is  one  perpetual  and  restless  intervention. 
As  to  the  balance  of  power,  if  the  pedantic  and  jealous  ad- 
herence to  the  status  quo  was  a  source  of  danger  and  of  wrong, 
which  the  good  sense  of  our  time  has  rejected,  there  is  a 
sense  in  which  it  is  an  invaluable  safeguard  against  the  pre- 
ponderance of  power. 

It  is  true  still,  that  it  will  be  a  dark  day  for  Europe  when 
any  one  Power  shall  hold  the  rest  in  the  hollow  of  its  mailed 
hand.  If  it  was  a  menace  to  Europe  when  the  House  of 
Hapsburg  or  of  Capet  threatened  to  absorb  half  Europe, 
if  it  was  an  European  calamity  when  Napoleon  ruled  from 
Berlin  to  Madrid,  so  it  will  be  the  knell  of  peace  and  liberty 
when  the  triumphant  Empire  of  Germany  bestrides  the 
Continent  without  an  equal.  If  it  succeed  in  doing  so  it 
will  be  the  act  of  England,  who  stands  by,  trading  and  ser- 


THE   DUTY  OF  ENGLAND  69 

monising,  selling  arms  but  using  none,  "bellum  caupo- 
nantes,  non  belligerantes,"  droning  out  homilies  and  betray- 
ing every  duty  of  a  nation.  It  will  be  the  crowning  proof 
of  the  degradation  of  those  governing  orders  who  have  bought 
power  by  subservience  to  the  traders,  and  surrendered  the 
traditions  of  their  ancestors;  that  they  who  can  make  war 
at  the  bidding  of  a  knot  of  merchants,  and  call  Europe  into 
conference  for  some  supposed  commercial  interest,  have 
nothing  in  this,  the  greatest  revolution  in  the  state  system 
of  modern  Europe,  but  a  policy  of  absolute  abnegation ; 
a  policy  which  thoughtful  politicians  know  to  be  suicidal, 
and  the  mass  of  the  people  feel  to  be  shameful;  the  policy 
which  the  new  Emperor  of  the  West  told  them  with  a  gibe, 
as  they  came  bowing  to  his  court,  was  the  only  policy  that 
remained  for  them  —  the  policy  of  effacement. 

January  17,  1871. 


Ill 

FRANCE   AFTER   WAR 

{June  1874) 

The  following  Essay  was  written  in  May  1874,  and  was 
published  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  of  that  year  {vol. 
XV.).  At  the  time  the  whole  of  the  milliards  {£200,- 
000,000)  had  been  paid  by  France,  and  her  territory  evacu- 
ated by  Germany.  A  fierce  struggle  under  the  ^^Mar- 
shalate^^  was  being  carried  on  by  De  Broglie  and  the 
Bonapartists  against  the  Republicans,  led  by  Thiers 
and  Gambetta.  The  political  parties  and  the  National 
Assembly  were  torn  by  monarchist  and  imperialist  in- 
trigues, and  the  existence  of  the  Republican  form 
hung  doubtfully  on  the  divisions  of  the  reactionary  sec- 
tions. In  the  meantime  the  German  chiefs  were  contem- 
plating a  fresh  invasion,  which  became  imminent  in 
the  following  year,  1875.  The  peril  of  the  Republic, 
and  even  of  France,  was  extreme  {igo8). 

Manifold  and  subtle  are  the  theories  propounded  to 
account  for  the  evils  which  have  fallen  upon  France.  It  is 
a  subject  to  exercise  our  powers  of  invention,  and  to  gratify 
our  sense  of  morality ;  so  that  every  man  has  an  explanation 
of  his  own,  which  differs  with  his  politics,  his  habits,  or  his 
creed.  Democracy,  despotism,  Dumas,  pilgrimages,  Vol- 
taire, absinthe,  Malthus,  or  bals-masques  are  the  theories 
chiefly  in  favour.     Yet  there  is,  one  would  think,  an  explana- 

70 


FRANCE   AFTER   WAR  7 1 

tion  before  our  eyes  quite  as  simple,  and  far  more  complete. 
If  we  miss  it,  it  is  only  because  it  is  too  familiar  to  us,  so 
manifest  that  we  are  apt  to  forget  its  presence  —  that  it 
towers  above  like  a  mountain,  whilst  we  are  staring  at  the 
foreground.  That  grand  cause  of  all  is  simply  the  Revolu- 
tion, still  in  the  course  of  its  long  agony.  Often  as  it  happens 
that  we  cannot  see  the  wood  for  the  trees,  it  was  never  more 
so  than  when  things  which  are  but  the  undergrowth  of  the 
Revolution  prevent  us  from  seeing  the  Revolution  itself. 

Rightly  to  judge  the  condition  of  France,  the  first  thing 
is  to  recognise  that  she  is  still  in  the  crisis  of  organic  revolu- 
tion. It  is  too  late  to  moralise  or  complain  over  this  obvious 
fact.  We  might  as  well  reproach  our  first  parents  with  the 
Fall  of  man.  And  it  is  idle  to  inveigh  against  evils  which 
are  the  inevitable  results  of  the  revolutionary  state,  when  we 
have  made  up  our  minds  that  the  Revolution  itself  must  be 
accepted.  It  was  an  unlucky  piece  of  hypercriticism  in  a 
great  master  of  logic  when  he  said  that  the  term  revolution 
meant  nothing  definite  or  real.  The  Revolution,  at  any 
rate  in  France,  is  the  most  real  fact  of  our  age.  The  Revo- 
lution is  the  change  from  the  feudal  to  the  industrial 
phase  of  society,  from  the  aristocratic  to  the  republican 
form  of  government,  from  the  Church  and  terrorism  to  good 
sense  and  humanity.  It  is  transforming  at  once  ideas, 
habits,  institutions,  nations,  and  societies.  Under  it  the 
national  sentiment  is  taking  a  new  departure,  partly  widen- 
ing into  that  of  the  great  community  of  the  people,  partly 
intensifying  itself  in  the  form  of  local  republicanism. 

Under  the  same  influence  the  struggle  of  the  people  for 
political  and  social  emancipation  makes  everything  spas- 
modic and  provisional.  When  we  see  constitution  after 
constitution  torn  to  pieces  in  France,  it  is  simply  that  the 
Revolution  has  left  the  great  fight  of  classes  still  undecided. 


72  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

If  anarchical  insurrections  .ape  succeeded  by  murderous 
tyrannies,  it  is  the  Revolution  raging  in  the  death-grapple 
of  two  types  of  society.  If  Government  seems  paralysed 
and  dissolved  into  a  Babel  of  changing  impulses,  it  is  simply 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  revolutionary  battle.  The  ^ross- 
purpose,  the  dead-lock,  the  ceaseless  repetition,  the  round- 
and-round  restlessness  of  politics  in  France,  are  nothing  but 
the  sway  of  parties  in  this  secular  contest.  To  complain  of 
it  is  as  idle  as  to  complain  of  the  smoke  and  of  the  dead  and 
dying  in  a  battle.  There  stand  face  to  face  two  great  prin- 
ciples, which  all  modern  history  has  been  preparing;  it  is 
a  struggle  in  which  all  nations  are  more  or  less' sharing,  but 
which  in  its  acutest  form  is  concentrated  in  France ;  it  is  a 
struggle  which  cannot  be  fought  out  either  soon  or  gently, 
for  it  claims  generations  of  men,  infinite  destruction,  suffer- 
ing, and  death.  On  this  issue  hang  the  most  momentous, 
consequences  for  evil  and  for  good,  for  France  and  for  Eu- 
rope ;  and  its  effects  are  so  grand  and  so  inevitable  that  it 
is  useless  to  dilate  upon  the  trivialities,  the  confusions,  the 
corruptions,  the  follies,  the  helplessness,  which  are  but  its 
symptoms  and  concomitants. 

The  great  war  and  the  great  overthrow  which  we  have 
lately  witnessed  in  France  are  but  an  episode  in  the  greater 
civil  war.  France  marched  upon  the  Rhine  in  the  mere 
delirium  of  civil  war;  she  lies  prostrate  before  Germany 
in  the  exhaustion  of  civil  war,  because  civil  war  had  almost 
dissolved  her  as  a  nation.  Parties  and  classes  within  her 
hate  and  fear  each  other  more  than  the  invader.  National 
spirit  has  been  broken,  because  the  national  sentiment  itself 
has  been  made  a  new  weapon  of  civil  war.  Religion  is  used 
as  a  means  of  party  victory,  and,  in  the  language  of  the  day, 
the  Bon  Dieu  has  become  a  deputy,  and  sits  on  the  Extreme 
Right.     So  far  from  its  being  matter  of  wonder  that  France 


FRANCE   AFTER  WAR  73 

should  be  weak,  divided,  and  restless,  it  would  be  wonderful 
if  she  were  not.  The  real  wonder  is  that  she  exists  as  a 
nation  at  all,  and  that  her  political  mechanism  still  works 
as  a  whole  in  the  midst  of  these  social  battles.  Nations 
engaged  in  civil  war  are  always  distracted  and  changeful, 
and  usually  a  prey  to  their  neighbours;  and  it  is  so  far  to 
the  credit  of  the  French  people  that  they  are  carrying  on 
their  social  war  without  actual  fighting  or  material  anarchy. 

The  nations  of  Europe,  who  from  the  comparative  calm 
of  their  national  unity  point  the  finger  of  scorn  at  France, 
should  at  least  remember  that  the  evils  which  she  endures 
have  an  origin  in  European  even  more  than  in  French  causes. 
That  is  to  say,  the  problems  which  her  people  have  to  solve, 
the  social  war  which  she  is  battling  through,  and  the  des- 
perate parties  and  principles  within  her,  are  common  to  all 
parts  of  civilised  Europe,  and  are  fed  by  European  resources. 
For  various  reasons  these  great  social  crises  are  brought  to 
their  acutest  and  earliest  phases  in  France.  But  the  issues 
are  being  fought  out  for  Europe,  and  are  envenomed  and 
protracted  by  European  entanglements.  France  is  the  first 
of  the  great  nations  of  Europe  which  has  resolutely  faced  and 
all  but  solved  the  crucial  problem  involved  in  passing  from 
the  feudal  to  the  republican  society.  She  is  the  first  which 
has  set  herself  avowedly  to  cast  off  the  old  skin  of  Catholic 
hypocrisy.  And  she  is  the  first  which  has  taken  as  her 
political  basis  the  social  recognition  of  the  mass  of  the  people. 
These  three  problems,  complex  as  they  are,  might  have  been 
settled  by  France  long  ago  had  she  stood  alone.  The  ob- 
stinacy of  the  contest  is  promoted  by  the  moral  and  often 
the  material  interference  of  forces  in  the  rest  of  Europe. 

France  by  herself  had  long  ago  silenced  the  remnants  of 
the  monarchical  and  the  feudal  factions;  but  they  keep  the 
field  by  the  immense  moral  support  which  they  receive  from 


74  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

the  consolidated  forces  of  monarchy  and  feudalism  still 
dominant  in  Europe.  By  herself,  France  would  long  ago 
have  reduced  her  ultramontane  Catholics  to  a  powerless 
sect,  were  it  not  that  Europe  and  the  world  still  arm  them 
with  fanatical  fury  against  her.  Thus  also  alone  she  would 
have  settled  the  task  of  the  social  incorporation  of  the  people, 
were  it  not  that  her  privileged  and  propertied  classes  fight 
with  the  desperation  of  an  advanced  guard,  which  sees  itself 
supported  and  encouraged  by  the  unbroken  ranks  of  the 
privileged  in  other  countries  around  them.  Were  France 
transported  bodily  to  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  it  would 
be  short  work  with  monarchy,  feudality,  church,  and  privi- 
lege. She  suffers  and  heaves,  and  is  torn  in  pieces  by  her 
own  children  as  by  strangers,  because  she  has  flung  herself 
first  into  a  movement  for  which  Europe  is  not  ready,  but 
where  Europe  yet  must  follow  her;  and  as  she  struggles 
onward  towards  a  new  and  more  human  social  order,  she 
has  to  make  head  against  the  feudalisms  and  the  sacerdo- 
talisms of  Europe,  against  the  class-passions,  the  bigotry, 
the  valetdom,  the  clericdom  of  the  world. 

In  this  great  revolution  the  last  few  years  have  witnessed 
the  most  extraordinary  change.  The  deepest  political  fact 
of  our  time,  the  most  critical  of  the  last  two  generations,  is 
the  fact  that  since  the  fall  of  the  empire  the  mass  of  the  French 
peasantry  have  definitely  ranged  themselves  on  the  side  of 
the  republic.  Now,  the  French  peasantry  are  the  great 
majority  of  French  citizens;  the  territorial  system  has  freed 
them  from  all  local  dictation,  and  the  political  system  has 
made  them  feel  independence  and  power.  The  mass  of  the 
French  peasantry,  in  the  material  sense,  are  France ;  and 
they  know  it.  They  were  the  bone  and  blood  of  the  up- 
rising of  '93 ;  they  filled  the  armies  which  threw  back  the 
kings,  and  followed  them  over  every  country  of  Europe ; 


FRANCE   AFTER   WAR  75 

they  decreed  the  revival  of  the  empire  in  1852 ;  and  they 
bore  the  suffering  and  the  slaughter  of  the  invasion  of  1870. 
They  are  not  an  heroic,  not  a  brilliant,  not  a  generous  order. 
They  have  neither  the  genius  nor  the  magnanimity,  and 
happily  none  of  the  fury,  which  have  often  fired  the  Paris 
workmen.  Their  virtues  are  of  a  soberer,  duller  kind ; 
they  are  patient,  enduring,  cautious,  frugal,  critical.  They 
are  very  tough,  very  slow  to  persuade,  very  suspicious  of 
the  new,  full  of  worldly  wisdom,  and  as  obstinate  as  over- 
driven mules;  and  from  their  numbers,  their  homogeneity, 
their  impassibility,  they  are  very  strong,  and  feel  that  they 
are  very  strong.  Who  that  has  ever  watched  the  canny 
Norman  peasant  on  his  patrimony,  has  failed  to  read  the 
unlimited  caution,  grit,  and  patience  of  the  man?  Who 
that  has  ever  studied  the  French  peasant's  fireside,  the  fire- 
side of  Sand  and  Hugo,  of  Millet  and  of  Frere,  has  failed 
to  perceive  that,  narrow,  dull,  and  penurious  as  it  might 
be,  it  is  the  home  of  a  citizen  —  of  a  citizen  who  has  no 
master?  That  man  will  ponder  slowly  over  things,  doubt, 
suspect,  and  think  mainly  of  himself.  He  will  often  be 
wrong,  unjust,  and  selfish;  but  when  he  gives  his  vote,  he 
will  give  it  as  a  man  who  intends  to  make  it  good,  and  knows 
that  he  can  make  it  good. 

For  generations  now  he  has  looked  upon  the  town  citizen 
as  his  principal  enemy,  as  a  man  whose  atheism  is  needlessly 
obtrusive,  and  whose  socialism  is  an  unpardonable  sin. 
For  generations  his  political  life  has  aimed  at  restraining 
the  town  workman;  and  for  him  the  town  workman  has 
been  embodied  in  the  republic.  Hence,  he  gave  France 
the  first  empire,  and  in  our  day  the  second  empire.  But 
a  great  change  has  come  over  him,  in  its  own  way  perhaps 
the  greatest  change  of  this  century.  For  the  first  time  in 
modern  French  history  the  peasant  and  the  town  workman 


76  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

have  been  brought  together  into  line.  Widely  as  they  differ 
in  their  view  of  its  form,  though  the  one  means  a  conservative 
bourgeoisie,  scarcely  differing  from  the  English  monarchy, 
and  the  other  a  democratic  dictatorship,  both  peasant  and 
workman  are  at  one  in  demanding  the  republic.  Nor  is  it  a 
mere  toleration  of  the  republic  that  the  peasant  is  prepared 
for:   it  is  a  settled  conviction  and  instinct. 

To  him  the  republic  is  now  the  conservative,  safe,  and 
moderate  institution ;  it  is  identified  with  property ;  it  repre- 
sents order,  it  gives  a  dignity  to  the  country  without,  and 
puts  an  end  to  civil  war  within.  The  parties  which  seem 
to  him  to  rage  against  the  republic  are  they  who  breathe 
anarchy  and  confiscation.  Horrid  rumours  of  ancient  feu- 
dalisms have  run  round,  and  the  quiet  useful  cure  is  seen 
to  swell  with  sacerdotal  pretensions,  and  to  meditate  strange 
revivals.  All  this  has  shocked  and  terrified  the  peasant, 
till  at  last  he  has  come  to  think  of  Church  and  Throne  with 
that  kind  of  hate  and  fear  with  which  the  Scotch  peasant 
under  the  Stuarts  thought  of  episcopacy.  He  has  awakened 
from  his  dream  of  the  Red  Spectre,  which  was  his  bugbear 
of  old.  If  he  is  troubled  now  with  spectres,  it  is  with  the 
tales  of  a  Black  Spectre  of  the  dimes,  and  the  White  Spectre 
of  the  corvees. 

During  the  six  months  of  war  nearly  a  million  of  men 
held  arms,  and  hardly  a  home  in  France  but  was  thus  asso- 
ciated with  the  struggle.  And  every  man  knew  that  he 
was  fighting  for  the  republic.  The  republic  was  France; 
it  alone  was  clear  of  the  guilt  of  the  original  disasters;  the 
only  gleams  of  success  had  been  won  by  the  republic;  the 
only  captains  who  gained  high  reputations  —  the  Faid- 
herbes,  the  Chanzys,  and  the  Denferts  —  were  known  or 
thought  to  be  republicans.  In  the  storm  of  disasters,  in  the 
agony  of  final  surrender,  and  in  the  last  humiliation  of  the 


FRANCE   AFTER   WAR  77 

cession,  men's  minds  would  turn  to  the  image  of  their  coun- 
try, —  and  the  symbol  of  their  country  was  always  the 
republic.  Tremendous  sufferings  and  defeat  can  bind  men 
sometimes  together  as  closely  as  illustrious  victories,  and 
sometimes  even  more  closely. 

To  the  old  soldier  of  the  empire  it  was  a  memory  more 
sacred  and  binding  to  have  been  with  the  Emperor  at  Water- 
loo than  to  have  been  beside  him  at  Austerlitz.  The  legend 
of  the  martyrdom  of  Waterloo  bore  its  fruit  in  the  second 
empire,  and  the  men  who  condoned  the  crime  of  December 
were  the  sons  and  grandsons  of  the  men  who  had  been  dragged 
to  bleed  in  the  death-struggle  of  the  last  years  of  the  empire, 
who  perished  in  Spain,  Germany,  or  Belgium,  who  died  on 
the  march  from  Moscow  or  in  the  bloody  fields  of  Cham- 
pagne and  the  Marne.  The  legend  of  the  great  war  of  1870 
is  slowly  forming  itself;  and  the  name  under  which  the 
battles  of  France  were  fought,  and  which  symbolised  her 
life,  was  the  name  of  the  republic.  It  is  sometimes  the  van- 
quished cause  which  leaves  deeper  associations  than  the 
victorious.  And,  as  in  every  cottage  in  France,  since  1815, 
the  tradition  of  the  great  events  and  great  sufferings  of  the 
generation  before  grew  personal  and  living  round  the  lurid 
image  of  Napoleon,  so  the  graven  memories  of  1870  and 
1 87 1  clung  with  a  tragic  pathos  round  the  image  and  name 
of  the  republic. 

There  was  thus  a  basis  of  sentiment  to  attach  the  peasant 
to  the  republic  as  an  institution.  But  this  would  have  availed 
little  had  it  not  been  supported  by  solid  inducements.  This 
tendency  was  turned  into  a  principle  by  the  patience  and 
skill  of  one  man.  To  M.  Gambetta  is  due  at  once  the  con- 
ception and  the  accomplishment  of  this  grand  political 
revolution.  It  is  a  feat  to  be  ranked  amongst  the  highest 
successes  of  political  sagacity  and  genuine  intuition.     As  a 


78  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

Stroke  of  policy,  it  ought  to  place  him  amongst  the  two  or 
three  statesmen  of  genius  of  our  time.  And  the  patience  and 
dexterity  with  which  this  policy  was  elaborated  are  as  fine 
as  the  power  of  the  conception.  M.  Gambetta  saw  that 
the  progress  of  the  social  evolution  was  fatally  interrupted 
by  the  antagonism  between  the  peasant  and  the  artisan,  by 
the  gulf  which  divided  the  one  from  the  other  in  political 
spirit,  and  the  antipathy  of  the  peasant  to  the  republic  from 
which  alone  anything  could  come.  He  saw  that  the  occa- 
sion had  arrived  when  the  peasant  might  come  over  to  the 
republic,  when  the  gulf  between  him  and  the  workman  might 
be  bridged,  and  v/hen  both  might  be  rallied  round  a  common 
political  ideal. 

With  this  view  he  patiently  set  himself  the  task  to  present 
to  the  mass  of  rural  France  the  republic  as  at  once  the  national 
and  the  conservative  symbol.  For  three  years  now  he  has 
laboured  with  a  patience  and  an  energy  which  would  have 
aroused  suspicion,  had  it  been  less  unobtrusive,  in  order  to 
allay  the  suspicions  of  the  peasants,  to  show  them  the  re- 
public and  the  republican  party  as  the  real  basis  of  order 
and  of  industry,  to  dispel  the  old  association  of  republican 
with  socialist.  The  noble  orations  which,  whilst  free  speech 
was  permitted,  he  addressed  to  France,  were  always  addressed 
to  the  country  at  large,  and  especially  the  rural  elements, 
and  were  as  full  of  the  true  conservative  temper  as  they  were 
of  national  sentiment.  They  had  that  success  which  be- 
longs only  to  the  rare  orators  of  an  age  who  know  how  to 
infuse  a  new  idea  into  an  entire  generation.  Since  free 
speech  has  been  suppressed,  his  action  has  been  still  more 
unceasing  in  insisting  on  legality  and  order,  in  insisting  on 
the  republic  as  the  principle  of  legality,  and  in  throwing 
on  the  anti-republican  parties  the  character  of  conspirators 
and  revolutionists.     Never  speaking  in  the  Chamber,  he  has 


FRANCE   AFTER   WAR  79 

laboured  incessantly  to  prevent  his  party  from  speaking  at 
all,  and  from  committing  act,  word,  or  attitude  of  violence; 
until,  alone  of  the  sections  of  the  Chamber,  the  Left  of  Gam- 
betta  is  the  party  which  has  never  menaced  any  interest,  or 
attempted  any  cabal,  or  indulged  in  any  passion,  —  which 
has  been  always  loyal  to  every  legal  right,  hostile  to  every 
change,  and  resolute  against  every  plot. 

Monarchists,  Churchmen,  Bourbonists,  Orleanists,  Im- 
perialists, and  Communists  have  been  seen  in  a  phantas- 
magoria of  conspiracies,  intrigues,  and  coups  d'etat.  The 
republic  and  the  Left,  which  is  its  guard,  alone  have  repre- 
sented to  France  and  to  the  world  respect  for  rights,  regular 
government,  and  an  era  of  rest.  And  if,  of  this  republican 
party,  M.  Thiers  has  been  the  titular  head  and  the  tongue, 
undoubtedly  M.  Gambetta  is  its  genius  and  its  will.  Whilst 
Thiers  came  over  to  it  by  the  effect  of  calculation,  Gambetta 
created  it  by  his  conviction,  energy,  and  self-command. 
And  his  reward  is  patent.  For  two  years  the  factions  of 
the  Assembly  have  been  growing  more  odious  to  the  nation, 
whilst  the  republican  majorities  have  become  more  certain 
and  more  complete.  The  republican  party  is  no  longer 
besieged  in  the  great  cities  by  armies  of  rural  conservatives. 
They  have  sallied  out  into  the  country,  and  both  have  fra- 
ternised. 

The  rural  districts  are  the  true  stronghold  now  of  the 
republicans.  The  Catholic  West  is  as  stout  as  the  turbu- 
lent South  or  the  industrial  North ;  and  the  pastoral  centres 
are  at  one.  For  the  first  time  in  this  century  the  country 
voters  have  resisted  the  entire  force  of  the  government 
engine  —  resisted  it,  and  broken  it  silently  to  pieces.  The 
extreme  angle  of  Britanny,  at  once  against  its  landlords, 
its  priests,  and  its  officials,  returns  a  republican  vote.  The 
peasant  has  not  changed  his  principles  or  his  aims.    He  is 


8o  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

Still  an  arrant  conservative,  still  bent  on  industrial  repose, 
still  the  sworn  foe  of  all  disturbers  of  Government,  from 
whatever  side  and  with  whatever  end.  He  has  not  changed 
his  principles,  but  he  has  distinctly  changed  his  watchwords. 
And  he  finds  now  all  that  he  hates  and  fears  in  the  enemies 
of  the  republic.  He  has  said  to  the  kings,  the  rival  kings, 
"It  is  thou  and  thy  house  that  trouble  Israel."  And  he  is 
a  republican  because  he  is  a  conservative,  and  because  he 
abhors  revolution. 

From  all  sides  of  France  one  may  hear  the  republican 
leaders  and  managers,  men  who  all  their  lives  have  looked 
to  see  the  peasant  vote  undo  in  a  day  their  labour  in  the 
cities  for  years,  one  may  hear  these  men  declare  their  wonder 
at  the  new  creed  of  the  peasant.  "We  cannot  believe  it  now 
we  see  it,  we  cannot  comprehend  it,  though  we  have  worked 
for  it,"  they  say,  as  the  peasants  under  their  eyes  vote  for  the 
republic  in  defiance  of  prefet,  cure,  and  mayor.  The  canny, 
stubborn,  suspicious,  self-regarding  peasant  is  the  same 
man  now  that  he  always  was,  and  he  is  voting  for  that  which 
in  his  slow,  sure  way  he  has  found  out  to  be  the  path  of  peace, 
order,  law,  and  prosperity.  In  country  towns  and  rural 
districts  it  is  all  the  same ;  whether  it  be  for  members  of  the 
Assembly,  mayors,  or  municipal  council,  the  republican  can- 
didate is  chosen.  There  never  was  a  sillier  jest  than  that 
famous  phrase  of  the  "Republic  without  republicans." 
There  are  now  some  six  or  seven  millions  of  republicans; 
not  republicans  by  theory  or  conviction  or  taste,  not  demo- 
crats, not  even  reformers,  but  simply  republicans  in  resist- 
ing a  monarchic  revolution,  and  in  founding  a  system  of 
law  and  rest.  And  this  critical  political  conversion  is  mainly 
the  work  of  one  man. 

There  are  few  men,  who,  in  this  country,  have  been  more 
hastily  judged  than  M.  Gambetta.     The  Gambetta  of  reality, 


FRANCE   AFTER   WAR  8 I 

the  man  known  to  parties  and  voters  in  France,  is  as  nearly 
as  possible  the  antithesis  of  the  Gambetta  of  the  vulgar 
imagination.  The  idea  that  he  is  an  impassioned  rhetori- 
cian, a  violent  demagogue,  and  a  man  of  phrases,  is  simply 
ludicrous  to  those  who  really  know  the  secret  of  his  influence, 
and  his  actual  mode  of  working.  That  he  was  the  one  man 
who  rose  in  France,  and  who  roused  France,  during  the 
war;  the  one  man  whom  the  Germans  recognised,  whom 
they  still  recognise,  as  a  great  force  —  that  he  is  an  orator, 
and  capable  of  Titanic  outbursts  of  energy,  is  no  doubt  true ; 
but  it  is  not  the  light  in  which  he  has  been  seen  since  the  hour 
of  the  capitulation.  This  demagogue  has  for  twelve  months 
never  addressed  an  audience ;  this  man  of  phrases  has  for 
years  hardly  uttered  a  word  in  the  Chamber;  this  violent 
democrat  has  never  let  slip  a  revolutionary  suggestion.  And 
all  the  while  his  influence  has  been  extending,  and  his  action 
growing  more  definite,  and  never  more  so  than  during  the 
time  when  every  republican  channel  has  been  shut. 

Far  different  are  the  modes  in  which  his  power  has  been 
gained.  By  the  most  solid  and  lawful  of  all  methods  of 
gaining  influence ;  by  the  personal  ascendancy  of  a  strong 
nature  and  a  clear  brain,  exerted  silently,  dafly,  and  uncon- 
sciously; by  sagacious  counsels,  based  on  passionate  con- 
victions; by  fortitude,  reticence,  self-control,  patience,  and 
sagacity;  by  dexterity  in  seizing  any  political  opportunity; 
by  capacity  to  accept  the  inevitable,  and  turn  it  to  better 
uses;  by  the  most  difficult  of  all  tasks  for  a  political  chief, 
that  of  rallying,  disciplining,  and  creating  a  party  whilst 
submitting  to  a  succession  of  defeats  without  the  hope  of 
victory  or  the  chance  of  retaliation  —  teaching  them  to 
endure  an  almost  crushing  repression  without  recourse  to 
insurrection ;  these  are  the  means  by  which  Gambetta  has 
succeeded  in  imposing  his  policy  on  the  republican  party. 


82  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

as  in  imposing  the  republican  party  upon  France.  It  is  a 
career  so  truly  that  of  the  leader  of  a  national  party,  such  as 
we  understand  it,  that  it  is  strange  this  has  not  been  more 
fully  recognised  in  England.  With  untiring  energy  and 
prudence  he  has  directed  the  principal  republican  journal 
which  has  steadily  reorganised  the  republican  party,  whilst 
never  admitting  a  chance  for  prosecution  even  under  a  "state 
of  siege."  Its  policy  has  been  strictly  conservative,  whilst 
at  the  same  time  essentially  republican.  Its  task  has  been 
daily  to  insist  on  legality,  respect  for  established  institutions, 
the  renunciation  of  all  violent  panaceas,  and  the  gradual 
formation  of  a  regular  government.  In  the  Chamber  the 
work  of  this  stirring  orator  has  been  to  suppress  all  speeches, 
to  organise  the  party  votes,  to  sustain  the  courage  of  the 
waverers  after  defeat,  to  repress  every  outburst  of  impa- 
tience. Those  who  go  to  the  Assembly  prepared  to  see  the 
Left  the  aggressive  party,  have  been  struck  by  their  patience 
and  reticence  under  every  attack,  their  resolve  to  avoid  all 
discussion,  their  inflexible  principle  of  recognising  no  con- 
stituent powers  in  the  Chamber;  and  at  the  head  of  the 
party,  intensely  active  but  resolutely  silent,  persuading, 
encouraging,  calming  all,  but  never  mounting  the  tribune, 
the  greatest  popular  orator  of  France. 

It  has  been  a  task  of  peculiar  difficulty,  because,  whilst 
reassuring  the  rural  conservatives,  M.  Gambetta  was  risking 
the  indignation  of  the  city  democrats.  His  most  violent 
enemies  are  found  in  the  Commune  and  the  friends  of  the 
Commune.  These  fanatics,  to  whom  metaphysical  theories 
are  of  more  importance  than  national  results,  have  fallen 
upon  him  as  the  worst  of  all  possible  enemies  —  a  traitor 
to  democracy.  The  late  rupture  between  M.  Gambetta 
and  the  Paris  radicals  has  been  and  still  is  a  real  danger  to 
M.  Gambetta.     His  grand  policy  of  bringing  the  rural  con- 


FRANCE   AFTER  WAR  83 

servatives  and  the  town  democrats  for  once  into  line  upon 
the  ground  of  a  conservative  republic,  may  of  course  always 
fail  if  the  city  republicans  are  incapable  of  adopting  a  com- 
promise. It  is  true  that  the  compromise  to  which  they  were 
invited  was  one  of  those  compromises  in  which  one  side 
appears  to  yield  everything;  for  the  republic  of  the  last 
twelve  months  has  been  as  oppressive  and  anti-republican 
as  the  worst  of  the  tyrannies  which  preceded  it,  and  as  arbi- 
trary as  any  precarious  government  could  be  made  to  be. 
And  if  M.  Gambetta  and  his  party  seemed  to  be  more  than 
accepting,  almost  supporting  this  system,  as  if  for  mere  sake 
of  its  name,  it  was  hard  for  the  popular  masses  to  believe 
that  they  got  anything  by  the  name.  There  are,  however, 
two  things  in  the  republic  of  Marshal  MacMahon :  in  the 
first  place  the  institution  is  the  republic,  and  in  the  next 
place  the  men  are  avowedly  temporary.  It  was  not,  like 
the  empire,  a  dynasty  and  a  permanent  despotism;  it  is 
not,  like  the  monarchy,  a  principle  and  a  class-tyranny. 
It  was  a  temporary  repression,  grievous  to  bear,  but  worth 
bearing  for  the  sake  of  all  that  it  made  possible. 

If  it  has  irritated  democrats  in  France,  it  has  puzzled 
constitutionalists  in  England,  to  see  the  entire  party  of  the 
Left  resolutely  clinging  to  a  Chamber  which  they  branded 
as  mere  usurpation,  accepting  without  protest  its  incendiary 
decisions,  and  ardently  working  at  its  combinations  whilst 
denying  its  right  to  make  a  law.  To  their  own  friends  they 
too  often  seemed  to  be  men  who  were  taking  part  with  a 
cabal,  which  in  set  words  declared  itself  at  war  with  the 
nation,  a  cabal  which  the  republican  minority  were  utterly 
powerless  to  restrain.  Their  policy,  however,  was  a  per- 
fectly intelligible  one.  The  Assembly  represented  legality, 
and  it  also  represented  the  republic;  for  if  the  Assembly 
was  not  the  legal  power  of  the  nation,  and  if  it  had  not  ac- 


84  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

cepted  the  republic,  there  was  nothing  legal  but  the  empire, 
and  the  field  was  open  to  any  successful  adventure.  And 
it  was  of  the  last  importance  that  the  plank  of  legality  should 
be  retained  in  the  storm,  and  the  republic  appear  before  the 
nation  as  the  sole  legitimate  power.  Then  the  army  would 
obey  the  Assembly  and  its  chosen  authorities,  and  to  defy 
the  Assembly  was  to  open  the  era  of  pronunciamentos.  Again, 
had  the  slightest  pretext  been  given  for  repressive  measures 
against  the  republican  party,  had  a  suspicion  found  a  foot- 
hold that  it  was  engaged  in  insurrectionary  schemes,  the 
rural  conservatives  would  have  instantly  flung  off  from  the 
republic  as  being  no  longer  identified  with  order.  The 
republicans,  then,  would  have  been  the  conspirators,  the 
malcontents,  as  of  old,  and  the  legitimate  holders  of  power 
would  again  have  been  saviours  of  society.  This  old,  old 
game  of  the  retrograde  cause  has  been  utterly  checkmated 
by  the  patience,  the  self-control,  and  the  far-sightedness  of 
the  republican  leaders. 

Their  parliamentary  tactics  have  been  simple  in  design, 
though  \ery  trying  in  execution.  Their  plan  has  been  to 
accept  to  the  utmost  the  legal  authority  of  the  Chamber,  to 
check  its  excesses  by  skilful  tactics,  whilst  never  appearing 
as  a  factious  or  insurgent  element.  A  single  violent  protest 
would  have  called  out  all  the  revolutionary  instincts,  have 
called  them  out  to  no  purpose,  and  to  certain  repression; 
whilst  a  direct  appeal  to  the  nation  would  have  broken  the 
confidence  of  the  conservative  peasants.  This  is  the  secret 
of  what  some  have  called  the  tameness  of  Gambetta,  and 
what  the  ardent  democrats  have  attacked  as  open  apostasy. 
In  the  language  of  one  of  them,  the  business  of  the  party  is 
faire  le  mort,  to  assume  extinction  whilst  working  with  in- 
tense activity  and  watching  for  every  opportunity.  It  is  a 
policy  needing  first-rate  organisation  and  mutual  confidence, 


FRANCE   AFTER   WAR  85 

great  ingenuity  and  energy,  with  the  power  of  waiting  for 
the  chance.  The  grand  aim  was  to  bring  about  a  dissolu- 
tion, whilst  never  declaring  war  on  the  majority,  or  appeal- 
ing to  the  people  against  them.  Gradually  it  was  believed 
that  the  play  of  parties  would  discredit  and  defeat  each  suc- 
ceeding government,  until  the  failure  of  every  combination 
should  bring  about  dissolution  in  very  despair. 

It  is  the  fashion  in  England  to  make  merry  over  the  French 
Assembly,  and  the  gross  caricatures  of  its  public  sittings 
with  which  leading  journals  indulge  the  pharisaical  vanity 
of  English  constitutionalists  have  misled  many  amongst  us 
as  to  the  real  character  of  that  Assembly.  But,  as  all  the 
world  in  France  knows,  the  public  sittings  are  merely  the 
interludes  of  its  real  activity,  and  are  often  devoted,  like 
those  of  other  parliaments,  to  the  noisiest  jesters  or  most 
violent  bores.  The  art  of  parliamentary  manoeuvring  is 
not  the  noblest  of  modern  inventions;  but,  such  as  the  art 
is,  it  is  practised  in  France  with  consummate  ability.  At 
any  rate,  the  tactics  which  the  Left  have  displayed  in  a  situa- 
tion of  desperate  emergency  may  be  ranked  with  the  best 
examples  of  discipline  and  sagacity  in  party  organisation. 
The  defeat  of  the  Monarchic  plot  in  November  was  a  happy 
instance  of  what  can  be  done  by  an  indomitable  minority. 
Even  before  Easter  the  De  Broglie  Government  would  have 
been  defeated,  and  have  disappeared,  had  not  the  plans 
of  M.  Gambetta  been  ruined  by  the  unlucky  blunder  of 
M.  Ledru-Rollin.  The  policy  at  last  has  succeeded,  and  at 
length  the  impossibility  of  the  actual  Assembly  continuing 
to  govern  the  country  has  been  made  manifest  by  the  mere 
machinery  of  parliamentary  strategy,  without  a  single  excuse 
for  the  charge  that  the  Left  have  appealed  to  force,  or  have 
quitted  the  ground  of  strict  legality. 

The  result  of  this  policy  has  been  to  extend  the  republican 


86  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

sentiment  in  France  as  it  could  have  been  extended  in  no 
other  way.  By  the  universal  consent  of  all  parties,  an  honest 
appeal  to  the  country  at  this  moment  would  show  an  over- 
whelming republican  majority.  According  to  good  author- 
ities, a  direct  and  honest  appeal  to  the  nation,  on  the  three 
typical  causes,  would  return  republic,  empire,  and  monarchy 
in  proportions  of  six,  two,  and  a  half.  According  to  some, 
Gambetta  would  be  carried  as  deputy  in  four-fifths  of  all 
the  departments  of  France.  But  if  the  country  is  essentially 
republican,  it  is  at  the  same  time  truly  conservative.  The 
advanced  democrats  are  in  a  scattered  minority,  and,  since 
the  collapse  of  the  communal  insurrection,  a  new  democratic 
rising  is  impossible  for  many  a  year.  Hence,  whilst  nothing 
but  a  republican  settlement  will  ultimately  satisfy  the  coun- 
try, nothing  but  a  moderate  government  can  hope  for  per- 
manent support.  Fortunately,  the  men  of  the  Left  are 
clearly  convinced  of  this;  they  are  aware  of  the  necessity 
of  patience,  and  see  that  their  day  has  not  yet  come.  Per- 
haps it  would  be  the  most  desirable  solution  if,  after  one  or 
two  intermediate  steps,  a  strong  republican  government 
could  be  established  on  the  type  of  men  like  M.  Grevy.  To 
the  communards  and  the  ultra-radicals  no  doubt  M.  Grevy 
represents  nothing  but  the  bourgeois  reaction,  and  M.  Gam- 
betta himself  is  to  them  much  of  the  same  colour.  But 
communards  and  ultra-radicals  for  the  present  are  out  of 
the  field,  and  M.  Gambetta  himself  is  a  long  way  from  being 
understood  as  the  practical  statesman  that  he  is. 

All  these  and  similar  calculations  would  be  worthless  if 
there  was  ground  for  the  current  belief  in  the  success  of 
imperialist  plots.  Because  military  adventurers  have  so 
often  succeeded  in  France  and  elsewhere,  because  Napoleon 
III.  seized  an  empire  amidst  the  wrangles  of  republicans, 
we  are  all  apt  to  assume  that  the  party  have  only  to  fix  their 


FRANCE   AFTER   WAR  87 

day  to  proclaim  Napoleon  IV.  It  may  be  so,  and  he  would 
be  a  bold  man  who  felt  certain  that  any  given  thing  was 
impossible  in  the  present  aspect  of  France.  But  there  seems 
little  in  the  state  of  the  country  to  justify  these  expectations. 
The  imperialists  are  powerful,  or  rather  conspicuous,  by 
their  audacity,  skill,  and  cohesion,  by  the  experience  of 
twenty  years  of  government  and  power,  by  the  goodwill  of 
large  sections  of  the  army,  by  the  general  tradition  and  pres- 
tige of  that  which  has  filled  men's  minds  and  accomplished 
great  changes.  For  twenty  years  every  adventurer  of  courage 
and  ambition  was  a  born  imperialist;  every  successful  capi- 
talist, soldier,  or  ofhcial  was  in  some  sort  pledged  to  the  only 
party  which  offered  him  a  career,  and  for  which  he  could 
feel  a  fellow-feeling.  The  second  empire  was  a  sort  of  grand 
Credit  Mobilier  or  joint-stock  company  (unlimited)  for 
military,  financial,  or  professional  speculators.  The  men 
who  meant  to  win,  and  who  knew  how  to  win,  were  all  en- 
tered as  members  of  this  great  national  Jockey  Club.  And 
naturally,  though  the  company  itself  has  been  wound  up, 
its  old  frequenters  are  the  men  who  make  a  great  noise  in 
the  world,  and  fill  it  with  rumours  of  a  new  revival  of  the 
concern. 

This  is  perhaps  the  reason  why  the  French  Rentes  are 
an  inverse  and  not  a  direct  barometer  of  public  affairs  in 
France.  The  witty  Dean  said  there  was  no  such  fool  as  the 
Three  per  Cents.  The  Three  per  Cents  may  be  very  short- 
sighted, though  in  England  they  bear  some  relation  to  pros- 
pects of  national  prosperity.  But  the  French  Three  per 
Cents  are  not  only  foolish  and  shortsighted,  but  they  give 
way  to  political  passion.  A  vision  of  successful  conspiracy 
sends  them  up;  the  probability  of  civil  war  makes  them 
buoyant;  and  the  prospect  of  a  really  settled  government 
will  send  the  quotations  down  to  "heavy"  or  "flat."     The 


88  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

farther  off  grows  the  chance  of  the  country  being  turned  into 
a  national  "hell,"  the  more  depressed  grows  the  rentier 
world.  And  as  the  French  nation  in  general  do  not  do  much 
in  Rentes,  their  rise  or  fall  will  depend  on  the  prospect  which 
the  speculator  class  may  entertain  of  a  legal  exploitation  of 
society.  A  party  like  this  is  naturally  strong,  and  it  would 
be  strange  indeed  if  we  did  not  hear  a  great  deal  of  its  ac- 
tivity. But  it  lacks  two  things  now  which  enabled  it  for- 
merly to  seize  power  and  found  an  empire.  The  imperial 
tradition  was  strong  with  the  peasants,  and  it  was  paramount 
with  the  army.  It  was  the  only  thing  with  an  imposing 
past  and  with  a  possible  future.  Both  these  are  lost  to  it 
now.  The  tradition  of  the  empire  is  shattered  for  ever  in 
the  homes  of  the  peasantry.  The  Church  has  laboured  to 
uproot  it,  and  laboured  we  may  hope  for  the  republic,  not 
for  itself.  And  what  of  that  tradition  the  Church  failed  to 
uproot  was  uprooted  by  successive  mayors  and  prefets  of 
Gambetta,  Thiers,  and  De  Broglie. 

We  may  take  it  as  admitted  that  whilst  the  empire  is 
strong  amongst  successful  bourgeois  and  large  sections  of 
the  rich,  it  has  died  out  for  ever  from  the  rural  districts  of 
France.  As  to  the  armv,  we  are  assured  on  all  sides  that 
it  is  only  partly  imperialist,  and  that,  by  the  best  accounts, 
to  an  extent  not  exceeding  a  third.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
section  in  the  lower  ranks,  hardly  inferior  in  number,  is 
just  as  distinctly  republican;  whilst  the  bulk  may  be  taken 
as  unwilling  to  be  the  tools  of  any  political  party.  The 
esprit  de  corps  of  the  old  Imperial  Guard  is  no  longer  avail- 
able; the  sense  of  power  as  of  a  praetorian  band  is  gone; 
and  the  army  itself  is  far  more  likely  to  fall  to  pieces  than 
to  impose  a  new  dynasty  on  the  country.  These  are  not 
hopeful  elements  for  the  Imperial  restoration;  and  though 
perhaps  in  the  chaos  of  parties  it  is  not  altogether  impossible, 


FRANCE   AFTER  WAR  89 

it  would  need  a  conjunction  of  chances,  and  a  genius  for 
conspiracy,  such  as  are  not  at  all  likely  to  be  vouchsafed  to 
the  prayers  of  the  Corsican  band.  If  they  were  going  to 
succeed  in  their  coup  d'etat  or  pronunciamento,  why  has  it 
not  come  off  already  —  for  assuredly  as  good  opportunities 
have  arisen  as  are  ever  likely  to  arise?  And  if  it  were  to 
succeed,  and  the  flaccid  lad  at  Chiselhurst  came  back  in 
the  purple  and  the  bees,  how  long  would  his  reign  be  likely 
to  endure  ?  The  empire  is  by  its  essence  an  autocracy  — 
a  democratic  autocracy,  it  may  be,  but  in  any  case  a  govern- 
ment ultimately  resting  in  a  single  hand.  That  is  its  strength 
and  its  claim.  If  it  were  anything  else,  it  would  not  differ 
from  any  of  the  other  parties  of  moral  disorder  which,  since 
the  fall  of  M.  Thiers,  have  been  struggling  to  possess  them- 
selves of  France.  But  where  is  the  strong  man  of  the  third 
empire,  and  how  would  any  of  his  viziers  or  marshals  differ 
from  the  rest  of  the  generals  who  conspire  and  vapour  at 
Versailles  ? 

There  is,  however,  another  danger  to  which  France  is 
exposed,  perhaps  more  real  than  Socialist  insurrections  or 
Imperial  plots.  In  the  condition  in  which  France  lies,  she 
is  practically  at  the  mercy  of  her  late  enemy.  As  every  one 
but  the  English  ministry  saw,  the  so-called  peace  of  Frank- 
fort left  France  utterly  exposed  to  a  second  overthrow  at 
the  will  of  Germany.  In  a  military  sense  three  weeks  would 
sufhce  to  bring  the  German  Emperor  to  the  gates  of  Paris, 
and  no  one  seems  to  see  anything  to  stop  him.  The  military 
caste  throughout  Germany  long  to  finish  their  work;  the 
military  and  official  caste  are  scandalised  that  France  should 
presume  to  live;  that  she  should  be  still  wealthy  is  a  clear 
casus  belli.  Prince  Bismarck  is  said  to  speak  of  the  five 
milliards  with  the  self-reproach  of  a  bandit  chief  who  dis- 
covers that  a  captive  whom  he  has  just  ransomed  could  have 


QO  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

found  double  the  sum,  had  he  been  wrung  rather  more 
sharply.  It  is  certain  that  renewal  of  the  war  has  been 
more  than  once  contemplated  in  Germany,  and  is  still  looked 
on  as  merely  adjourned.  The  safety  of  France  therefore 
rests  only  on  the  good  sense  of  the  German  people,  and 
their  power  to  resist  the  criminal  ambition  of  the  German 
chiefs.  No  one  in  France  or  out  of  it  can  seriously  believe 
that  the  French  army  is  in  any  way  equal  to  meet  the  German 
army  in  the  field.  The  reorganisation  of  the  army  has  been 
much  talked  about,  but  all  accounts  concur  in  showing  that 
it  has  not  gone  beyond  that  stage.  Catastrophes  like  that 
of  1870  are  not  repaired  in  a  moment,  and  every  authority 
agrees  in  the  opinion  that  the  army  is  still  under  the  influence 
of  that  complete  overthrow.* 

There  is  not  the  slightest  ground  for  the  assertion  so  sedu- 
lously repeated  by  official  organs  in  Berlin,  that  France  is 
preparing  to  renew  the  contest.  Neither  in  nor  out  of  the 
army  is  there  any  dream  of  the  kind.  Frenchmen  indeed 
would  be  wanting  in  every  sense  of  patriotism  did  they  ac- 
cept the  partition  of  their  country  as  final,  and  took  the 
treaty  of  Frankfort  as  the  date  of  a  new  national  era.  But 
as  it  is  impossible  that  it  could  be  otherwise,  it  is  hypocrisy 
to  pretend  that  because  Frenchmen  do  not  admit  what  it 
would  be  base  in  them  to  admit,  they  are  therefore  preparing 
for  war.  There  is  all  the  difference  between  declining  to 
believe  the  finality  of  an  act  of  conquest  and  the  active  inten- 
tion to  dispute  it  as  a  fact.  Nations  are  often  compelled  to 
recognise  as  facts  what  they  would  be  craven  to  sanction  as 
rights.  For  a  generation  after  Waterloo,  the  French  people 
talked  of  revenge  more  loudly  and  more  unanimously  than 

*  This  great  danger,  as  we  now  know,  was  imminent  in  1875,  and  was 
only  averted  by  the  secret  influence  of  the  sovereigns  of  England,  of  Russia, 
and  European  diplomacy. 


FRANCE   AFTER   WAR  9 1 

they  have  ever  done  towards  Germany  before  Sedan  or 
since. 

If  our  statesmen  in  i8 15-1825  had  acted  on  the  assump- 
tion that  these  inevitable  protests  were  equivalent  to  a  na- 
tional intention  to  renew  the  war,  they  would  have  acted  in 
bad  faith  and  with  wanton  aggression.  Since  no  conceivable 
acts  of  spoliation,  which  German  hypocrisy  calls  guarantees, 
could  have  forced  the  French  people  to  acknowledge  them 
as  based  on  incontestable  right,  unless  the  French  people 
had  lost  all  sentiment  of  honour  along  with  the  loss  of  the 
provinces,  it  is  ill  faith  to  see  the  renewal  of  war  in  every 
groan  for  the  cities  and  the  citizens  which  have  been  torn 
from  them.  If  the  annexation  of  half  of  all  France  had 
been  found  necessary  to  the  strategic  combinations  of  Von 
Moltke,  it  would  have  been  the  duty  of  the  other  half  to 
refuse  to  acknowledge  it  as  a  right,  however  much  they 
were  forced  to  accept  it  as  a  fact. 

The  question  then  is  solely  one  of  fact,  and  the  patent 
fact  is  that  France  is  not  contemplating  war,  in  any  sense 
that  belongs  to  political  realities,  in  any  sense  in  which  it 
is  not  just  as  true  to  say  that  Germany  is  contemplating 
war  with  Russia,  or  Russia  with  Germany.  Every  nation 
which  maintains  an  army  assumes  that  war  is  not  impossible, 
and  every  nation  which  has  been  dismembered  hopes  the 
day  may  come  when  its  lost  member  may  return.  In  this 
sense,  and  in  this  sense  only,  is  France  contemplating  re- 
venge; and  in  this  sense  Denmark  may  be  said  to  be  con- 
templating war  on  Germany,  or  Turkey  on  Greece,  or  Spain 
on  England.  There  is  not  a  single  party,  not  a  single  journal, 
in  France  which  hints  at  a  renewal  of  the  war.  Responsible 
men  of  all  sections,  and  indeed  the  people  at  large,  are  far 
too  conscious  of  their  own  prostration,  and  of  the  utter  mad- 
ness of  the  attempt,  to  make  such  a  policy  endurable.     Of 


g2  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

all  parties  the  republican  party,  if  any,  is  pledged  to  the 
national  honour;  and  of  all  men  in  it,  Gambetta  represents 
most  distinctly  the  principle  of  no  surrender.  But  the 
republican  party  and  its  chief  stand  pledged  to  a  policy  of 
peace.  And  though  a  political  party  may  not  always  dis- 
close their  real  intentions,  a  party  would  be  instantly  dis- 
credited which  publicly  discountenanced  a  national  desire. 
According  to  a  popular  theory,  a  theory  most  grateful 
to  German  arrogance  and  British  morality,  the  entire  French 
nation  is  in  a  state  of  physical,  moral,  and  national  decrepi- 
tude. There  are  always  wiseacres  who  derive  solid  satis- 
faction from  shaking  their  heads  over  Sodom  and  Gomorrah, 
and  explaining  the  mysteries  of  national  corruption.  Curi- 
ously enough  it  is  a  practice  in  which  all  nations  indulge 
in  turn,  and  with  the  smallest  possible  data.  A  generation 
ago  it  was  the  fashion  to  groan  over  the  decadence  of  Eng- 
land, the  vitals  of  which,  we  were  told,  were  eaten  up  with 
pauperism,  gin,  and  the  Haymarket.  At  another  time 
Germany  was  understood  to  be  reduced  to  a  state  of  univer- 
sal syncope  by  addiction  to  metaphysics  and  nicotine.  At 
another  time  Russia  is  supposed  to  be  the  victim  of  general 
gangrene,  and  a  great  moralist  has  warned  us  that  nothing 
can  come  out  of  Italy  but  dancers  and  singers.  These 
wholesale  indictments  against  nations  are  equally  easy  and 
equally  absurd.  When  thirty-six  millions  of  men  in  the 
very  centre  of  Europe  are  found  in  a  state  of  real  decay, 
the  knell  will  have  struck  for  the  civilisation  of  Europe. 
Europe  is  a  political  unit,  and  its  civilisation  is  homogeneous, 
and  if  one-fifth  of  its  area  is  in  a  dying  state,  Europe  has 
not  long  to  live.  The  brain  or  the  heart  of  a  living  body 
might  as  well  dilate  with  a  gloomy  satisfaction  about  the 
signs  of  cancer  impending  over  the  misguided  stomach,  as 
Englishmen  or  Germans  moralise  over  the  signs  of  dissolu- 


FRANCE   AFTER   WAR  93 

tion  in  France.  Just  as  it  is  the  conviction  of  profound 
provincials  that  our  modern  Babylon  is  a  mystery  of  abomi- 
nation, so  it  is  the  faith  of  profound  politicians  that  some 
particular  race  in  Europe  is  rotting  towards  its  end ;  so,  too, 
it  is  the  inward  belief  of  the  superior  American  that  the  old 
world  is  used  up,  and  so  the  apostles  of  a  new  life  in  Salt 
Lake  will  assure  us  that  the  old  American  states  are  doomed. 
Of  all  satire  national  satire  is  the  most  obvious,  as  it  is  cer- 
tainly the  most  monotonous. 

That  society  in  France  is  in  active  convulsion  and  transi- 
tion, that  her  national  cohesion  is  suffering  most  violent 
shocks,  that  classes  and  strata  of  her  society  are  on  the  point 
of  final  extinction,  all  this  is  too  obvious  to  be  discussed. 
But  the  state  of  exhaustion  and  corruption  within  her  is  not 
nearly  so  great  as  that  which  some  other  nations  have  expe- 
rienced, and  which  more  than  once  she  has  experienced 
herself.  This  does  not  to-day  approach  the  state  of  dis- 
organisation and  apparent  death  in  which  Germany  lay  in 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  or  in  which  Prussia  lay  on  the  mor- 
row of  Jena;  nor  does  it  approach  that  which  France  her- 
self has  known  in  the  mediaeval  civil  wars,  or  in  the  declining 
years  of  Louis  XIV.  A  superficial  moralist,  who  dilated 
on  the  state  of  England  during  the  reign  of  Charles  II., 
would  have  found  little  to  remind  him  that  she  had  just 
produced  Cromwell  and  Shakespeare,  and  was  about  to  pro- 
duce Newton  and  Marlborough.  The  elasticity  of  France 
in  recovering  from  the  havoc  of  the  war,  and  in  unfolding 
incredible  resources,  has  filled  the  world  with  wonder,  and 
has  filled  Prince  Bismarck's  soul  with  pangs  of  covetous 
remorse.  In  very  truth  France,  for  generations,  has  never 
been  so  laborious,  so  thrifty,  so  prosperous,  so  ingenious, 
so  rich,  so  active  as  she  is  at  this  moment.  Amidst  black 
spots  marked  with  unutterable  corruption,  and  perhaps  with 


94  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

physical  decline,  the  millions  who  cultivate  her  vast  and 
prolific  area  are  as  hardy,  alert,  and  sober  as  ever  they 
were  known  to  us  before.  Absinthe,  Ernest  Feydeau,  caf^s 
chantants,  and  baccarat  are  not  much  in  vogue  amongst 
them;  and  if  these  reach  as  much  as  a  million,  there  are 
thirty-five  millions  to  whom  they  are  unknown.  A  people 
so  intelligent  and  vigorous  have  raised  France  before  out 
of  deeper  disasters,  and  with  far  less  available  resources. 

It  may  well  be  that  worse  is  in  store  for  her  yet,  and  that 
the  lowest  point  of  her  agony  has  not  even  now  been  reached. 
It  may  well  be  that  a  generation  or  generations  may  still  be 
needed  for  the  final  settlement  of  France.  The  task  which 
she  has  set  herself  to  solve  is  one  which  demands  generations, 
and  in  which  even  greater  catastrophes  may  seem  insig- 
nificant. The  passage  from  an  exhausted  to  a  new  type  of 
society  is  invariably  surrounded  with  convulsion  and  dis- 
aster. And  if  out  of  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  revolutionary 
struggle  we  are  destined  to  see  grow  up  in  France  a  perma- 
nent and  solid  republic,  victorious  over  the  opposing  forces, 
whether  feudal,  military,  or  Catholic,  the  memory  of  the 
struggles  through  which  it  had  been  won  would  be  speedily 
effaced,  and  the  price  at  which  it  was  secured  would  be  cheer- 
fully and  easily  accepted. 


IV 

LEON   GAMBETTA 

(1882) 

This  was  a  memorial  address  on  the  death  of  Gamhetta, 
December  ji,  1882,  and  was  delivered  in  Newton  Hall 
shortly  after  the  state  funeral,  January  6,  1883.  It 
was  published  in  the  Contemporary  Review  {vol.  xliii.). 
It  is  in  form  what  the  French  call  an  Eloge,  and  it 
must  he  read  as  the  funeral  discourse  given  at  a  public 
ceremony  by  one  who  was  deeply  absorbed  in  the  crisis 
of  the  Republic  and  who  had  long  been  in  personal  re- 
lations with  the  dead  statesman,  his  friends,  and  col- 
leagues. A  long  journey  round  the  French  Provinces 
in  the  autumn  of  i8jy,  during  the  great  Electoral  cam- 
paign, to  decide  if  Marshal  MacMahon  should  se  sou- 
mettre  or  se  demettre,  when  the  writer  sent  a  series  of 
letters  to  the  Times,  and  had  been  in  touch  with  all  the 
Republican  committees  centralised  by  Gambetta,  had 
given  him  a  special  insight  into  the  efforts  which  forced 
the  Marshal  to  resign  in  December  18 jy  {igo8). 

For  good  or  for  evil,  L^on  Gambetta  was  bound  up  with 
the  Republic  as  was  no  other  contemporary  life.  He  was 
the  first  statesman  of  European  importance  formally  to 
offer  his  public  homage  to  Comte  as  the  greatest  mind  of 
the  nineteenth  century;  and  formally  to  adopt,  as  his  lead- 
ing idea  in  pohtics,   Comte's  great  aphorism:    "Progress 

95 


96  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

can  only  arise  out  of  the  development  of  Order."  But  it 
is  not  for  this  that  Gambetta  holds  a  place  of  prime  impor- 
tance in  my  eyes.  The  doings  of  a  statesman  are  what 
concern  us,  and  not  his  protestations.  And  it  is  in  the  region 
of  action  that  Gambetta  foreshadows  the  type  of  the  Republi- 
can statesman  —  rudely  and  incompletely,  no  doubt  —  but 
with  all  the  essential  elements.  He  is  the  first  European 
statesman  of  this  century  who  is  heart  and  soul  Republican ; 
the  only  one  whose  fibre  is  entirely  popular;  who  saw  that 
the  Republic  implied  a  real  social  reconstruction;  he  is  the 
only  European  statesman  who  is  equally  zealous  for  progress 
and  for  order,  and  most  assuredly  he  is  the  only  statesman 
of  this  century  who  has  formally  thrown  away  every  kind 
of  theological  crutch. 

This  is  no  panegyric  of  a  public  man.  Of  such  we  have 
had  enough.  It  is  no  critical  analysis  of  a  striking  personality. 
We  are  met  here  neither  to  bury  Cccsar,  nor  to  praise  him. 
Brutus  and  Cassius  and  the  rest  have  told  us  that  he  was 
ambitious,  and  had  many  grievous  faults.  I  am  not  about 
to  dispute  it.  There  are  many  things  in  his  public  career, 
especially  in  its  later  years,  which  we  wholly  fail  to  reconcile, 
not  only  with  the  best  type  of  the  statesman,  but  with  any 
reasonable  version  of  his  own  principles.  As  to  his  private 
life,  there  are  things,  perhaps,  gross  and  unworthy,  and  a 
public  man  has  no  private  life.  But  unworthy  if  they  be, 
they  were  not  of  the  kind  which  seriously  disable  a  public 
career.  He  was  not  a  corrupting  pedantocrat  like  Guizot, 
nor  a  corrupted  cynic  like  Thiers;  he  was  not  a  king  of 
gamblers  like  Napoleon,  nor  a  king  of  jobbers  like  Louis 
Philippe.  He  was  a  jovial,  unabashed  son  of  Paris;  with- 
out special  refinement  of  life,  or  sensitive  delicacy  of  con- 
science. We  have  yet  no  means  of  proving  the  truth  of  the 
stories  that  we  hear  of  the  kind  of  men  who  from  time  to 


LEON  GAMBETTA  97 

time  shared  his  intimacy,  and  of  the  enterprises  or  adven- 
tures to  which  he  allowed  himself  to  be  made  a  more  or  less 
blinded  accomplice.  Let  us  leave  these  tales  for  time  to 
reveal.  However  they  turn  out,  the  essential  man  in  the 
main  is  known  to  us  now. 

If  he  allowed  himself  familiarity  with  unworthy  adven- 
turers, certain  it  is,  that  in  all  parts  of  France  he  retained 
till  his  death  the  devoted  attachment  of  the  most  honourable 
spirits  of  his  country.  If  his  name  was  used  at  times  to 
back  up  a  financial  job,  it  is  yet  most  clear  that  with  porten- 
tous opportunities  for  serving  himself,  he  neither  made  nor 
spent  a  fortune.  If  his  policy  was  not  always  consistent 
with  a  high  sense  of  honour,  it  was  never  dictated  by  vulgar 
ambition.  Coarseness  of  nature,  whether  in  private  and 
in  public  life,  is  no  final  bar  to  greatness  in  a  statesman. 
The  greatest  names  in  political  history  have  often  been  soiled 
with  unedifying  weakness  and  unscrupulous  expedients. 
The  statesmen  of  history  are  as  little  the  types  of  moral 
purity  as  the  saints  are  types  of  practical  sagacity.  A  states- 
man in  an  era  like  this  is  a  man  by  necessity  of  compromise 
and  expedients.  His  agents  he  takes  as  he  finds  them;  and 
he  takes  them  with  good  and  bad  together.  And  when  all 
this  is  said,  we  must  judge  them  in  the  rough  as  they  are. 
Energy  and  sagacity,  and  the  genius  to  give  the  true  lead  to 
forty  millions  of  men,  are  qualities  of  such  transcendent 
value  to  mankind,  that  we  must  hail  them  at  all  costs  wher- 
ever we  find  them.  And  these  qualities  were  assuredly  in 
Ldon  Gambetta. 

I  will  take  but  four  cardinal  facts  about  his  career,  and 
consider  him,  firstly,  as  the  true  creator  of  the  Republic; 
secondly,  as  a  type  of  the  statesman  of  the  people ;  thirdly,  as 
the  representative  of  the  union  of  order  and  progress ;  and 
fourthly,  as  representative  of  the  secular  movement  in  politics. 


98  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

In  every  one  of  these,  and  in  all  of  them  in  combination, 
Gambetta  is  the  only  French  statesman  of  the  first  order 
whom  this  century  has  produced. 

Of  the  first  order  ?  it  is  asked.  Yes !  Whatever  judg- 
ment we  may  pass  on  his  work,  there  can  be  no  real  dispute 
about  his  power.  He  was  hardly  laid  in  his  grave,  when 
the  very  existence  of  the  Republic  was  suddenly  challenged, 
and  through  all  ranks  of  Republicans  a  sudden  panic  arose, 
men's  hearts  failing  them  for  fear.  A  week  before  his  death, 
in  spite  of  disquiet  and  confusion,  the  Constitution  in  France 
seemed  as  much  a  thing  of  course  as  the  Constitution  in 
England.  A  week  after  his  burial  everything  seemed  an 
open  question  again,  as  on  the  eve  of  Sedan.  He  is  the  one 
Frenchman  whom  the  keen  statesmen  of  Germany  took  to 
be  of  paramount  importance  to  Germany;  he  is  the  one 
Frenchman  who  represented  something  definite  to  every 
man  throughout  the  civilised  world  possessing  the  simplest 
notion  of  politics;  and  he  was  the  one  Frenchman  whose 
name  and  character  were  known  to  every  elector  in  France. 
The  death  of  Gambetta  was  to  France  what  the  death  of 
Cavour  was  to  Italy;  what  the  death  of  Bismarck  will  be 
to  Germany.  At  the  day  of  his  death  he  filled  the  minds 
of  French  politicians  more  than  Guizot  ever  did,  or  Thiers, 
or  any  of  the  nameless  Ministers  of  empire  and  monarchy  — 
more  than  Peel  ever  filled  men's  thoughts  amongst  us,  more 
even  than  Gladstone  does  now. 

His  brief  hour  of  ofhce  was  an  interlude.  He  is  almost 
the  one  Frenchman  of  our  times  who  could  fall  from  office 
without  disappearing  from  public  life.  Ofhce  made  no 
difference  to  his  personal  power,  except  that  it  hampered  it 
by  arousing  a  storm  of  jealousies.  Death,  as  usual,  is  the 
true  measure  of  greatness,  and  death  has  revealed  to  us  with 
startling  force  what  is  the  Republic  with   Gambetta  and 


LEON  GAMBETTA  99 

what  it  is  without  him.  Right  or  wrong,  this  is  power;  this 
is  one  of  those  pre-eminent  personaHties  which  occur  but 
now  and  then  in  a  century.  Here  is  the  great  man  (it  is 
one  of  those  facts  which  we  must  take  as  facts,  whether  we 
Hke  it  or  not),  and  it  is  with  justice  that  his  followers  say, 
"Here  is  the  man  who  is  not  of  the  order  of  the  Jules  Favres 
and  the  Jules  Simons,  or  the  Jules  Ferrys,  or  even  of  the 
Thiers  and  the  Guizots  —  here  is  a  born  leader  of  the  order 
of  the  Dantons  and  the  Hoches." 

I.  Take  him  as  the  creator  of  the  Republic.  There 
were  three  successive  epochs  in  which  Gambetta  was  the 
true  author  of  the  Republic :  in  1868-9,  '^^  1870-1,  in  1876-8. 
For  sixteen  years  the  Empire  had  lain  like  a  nightmare  upon 
France;  corrupting  it  from  above,  crushing  it  within,  weak- 
ening it  without,  degrading  and  stifling  the  entire  French 
nation.  All  the  better  elements  of  the  people  revolted;  all 
were  ready  for  a  resurrection  —  but  who  gave  the  word  ? 
Always  and  everywhere  Gambetta.  His  energy,  his  courage, 
his  faith  in  the  Republic,  his  scorn  of  the  Empire,  rang  like 
an  electric  shock  through  France.  In  November  1868, 
the  date  of  his  famous  speech  denouncing  the  Empire,  he 
was  a  briefless,  unknown  barrister.  In  the  early  spring 
of  1869  he  was  the  rival,  the  terror,  and  the  judge  of  the 
Empire.  The  Emperor  in  these  last  two  years  shook  and 
cowered  before  a  young  lawyer. 

It  is  easy  to  say  that  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Frenchmen 
felt  this,  that  Paris  was  seething  with  insurrection,  and  the 
whole  thinking  class,  and  the  entire  working  class,  was  in 
defiance.  True;  but  both  wanted  the  tongue,  the  soul, 
the  heart,  and  they  found  those  in  Gambetta.  The  Jules 
Simons,  the  Rocheforts,  and  Provost  Paradols,  might  write 
smart  articles;  Delescluze  and  Blanqui  could  conspire; 
but  neither  epigrams  nor  conspiracies  could  shake  the  Em- 


lOO  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

pire.  It  needed  an  agitator  who  was  also  a  statesman. 
Gambetta  was  both;  and  he  struck  the  Empire  as  neither 
fifty  Jules  Simons  nor  a  hundred  Blanquis  could  strike  it. 

The  Empire  ended,  as  we  know,  in  an  utter  wreck;  and 
again,  on  the  morrow  of  Sedan,  the  Republic  was  the  work 
of  Gambetta.  He  planned  it,  he  organised  it,  he  established 
it.  In  that  shameful  overthrow  of  France,  in  the  winter  of 
1870,  the  one  redeeming  effort  stood  out  clear;  and  again, 
one  man  alone  struck  the  imagination  of  Europe,  of  Germany, 
of  France.  Such  a  negation  of  all  that  is  sound  and  manly 
as  was  the  Empire,  cannot  afflict  a  people  for  a  generation 
without  leaving  a  heritage  of  blight  and  corruption;  and 
with  all  my  love  for  the  French  name  and  people,  I  cannot 
deny  that  in  1870  it  had  sunk  as  low  as  a  nation  can  sink 
without  death.  From  that  torpor  France  was  saved  by 
the  energy  of  Gambetta.  That  one  man,  a  young,  un- 
known, penniless  lawyer  of  thirty-two,  roused  France  from 
her  slumber,  upheld  her  banner  against  hopeless  odds, 
made  the  French  people  feel  again  they  were  a  people, 
and  planted  in  their  hearts  the  image  of  Republic  instead 
of  Empire. 

Then  it  was  that  the  Republic  was  formed:  Gambetta's 
name  was  made  a  household  word  in  France.  Into  every 
village,  from  Ushant  to  Nice,  from  Dunkirk  to  St.  Sebastian, 
the  conscript  of  1870  carried  back  the  tale  of  a  leader  who 
had  kept  alive  the  French  name.  Since  the  days  of  the 
First  Napoleon,  no  name  had  ever  penetrated  into  every 
heart  in  France  as  did  Gambetta's.  He  was  the  one  man 
known  to  all  living  Frenchmen  —  man,  woman,  and  child 
—  and  known  as  the  inspirer  of  a  new  sense  —  love  of  the 
country.  He  was  the  moral  inspirer  of  the  nation;  for  he 
recalled  the  spirit  of  the  men  who  fought  at  Valmy  and 
Jemappes;    nay,  it  is  no  profanation  to  say  it,  he  recalled 


LEON  GAMBETTA  lOI 

Jeanne  Dare  herself.  He  restored  the  French  nation  to 
itself,  giving  France  back  to  Europe  as  one  of  her  great 
forces.  This  is  the  imperishable  work  of  the  Republic  of 
1870;  and  for  this  the  Republic  of  1870  will  be  remembered 
when  Bismarck  and  Moltke  and  the  German  Empire  are 
names  for  historical  research. 

It  failed.  Yes !  it  failed,  because  the  miserable  mon- 
archies and  empires,  which  have  succeeded  each  other  in 
France  since  the  Revolution,  had  crushed  out  of  Frenchmen 
the  national  spirit;  and  no  energy  or  genius  can  make  a 
nation  in  an  hour.  But  I  say  it  advisedly  —  now  that  twelve 
years  have  passed,  and  all  the  facts  are  known  —  that  but 
for  the  intrigues  and  fears  of  men  like  Bazaine,  and  Trochu, 
and  Thiers,  and  the  wild  intestine  hatred  that  a  generation 
of  civil  war  had  bred,  and  the  feebleness  and  the  selfishness 
that  a  generation  of  Empire  had  bred,  the  defence  would 
have  succeeded. 

The  Germans  knew  it,  and  feared  it.  It  was  impossible 
for  Germany  to  conquer  France  had  Frenchmen  been  true 
to  themselves.  The  grandsons  of  the  men  who  had  repelled 
Europe  at  five  sides  at  once  were  conquered  by  a  nation  no 
bigger,  and  far  less  powerful  in  material  resources  than 
themselves.  I  can  never  forget  how  Gambetta  himself 
spoke  of  this  to  me.  In  a  long  conversation  on  the  war,  I 
asked  him  years  after  all  was  over:  "Could  then  the  defence 
have  been  continued  in  1871?"  "Certainly!"  he  groaned 
out  bitterly,  crunching  his  clasped  hands.  "Of  course  it 
could!"  "Then  why  did  they  give  in?"  said  I.  "C'etait 
le  coeur  qui  leur  manquait,"  he  roared  out,  bounding  off 
his  seat,  and  his  face  purple  with  shame  and  rage.  "  Because 
they  were  out  of  heart,"  said  he.  And  I  felt  what  Danton 
had  been  in  '93. 

It  is  said  this  is  not  very  much  to  have  done.     Gambetta 


I02  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

was  an  eloquent  talker,  and  did  nothing  but  put  into  elo- 
quent words  the  thoughts  of  thousands.  In  one  sense  that 
is  true.  The  statesman  ex  hypothesi  is  not  the  original 
thinker ;  he  is  never  the  lonely  discoverer  of  a  peculiar  truth. 
Nor  is  he  the  mere  mouthpiece  of  other  men's  schemes. 
The  man  who  touches  the  brains  and  hearts  of  his  time 
with  that  sympathetic  and  guiding  note  which  brings  them 
to  one  act  at  the  given  time  —  the  man  who  makes  the  current 
idea  and  the  dominant  feeling  burn  in  thirty  millions  of 
spirits  at  once,  who  utters  the  true  word  at  the  right  time  — 
this  is  the  statesman;  and  the  man  of  this  sort  is  rare,  and 
appears  but  once  in  a  generation  or  two. 

The  work  of  Gambetta  in  1868,  or  in  1870,  was  in  the 
main  the  work  of  a  single  idea.  His  work  in  1877  was  far 
more  complex,  and  far  more  truly  of  the  political  sort.  The 
great  struggle  in  1877  between  Despotism  and  Republic  — 
for  that  was  the  true  issue  then,  as  we  now  see  —  was  in  a 
marvellous  sense  the  work  of  Gambetta.  The  long  six 
months'  struggle  of  France  with  the  Government  of  Combat, 
under  MacMahon  and  De  Broglie,  the  consummate  skill 
with  which  all  the  Republican  parties  were  restrained,  sus- 
tained, and  concentrated,  the  order,  self-restraint,  and 
discipline  of  the  country  under  a  series  of  reckless  provoca- 
tions, the  grasp  over  an  intricate  network  of  electoral  move- 
ments from  one  end  of  France  to  another,  the  marvellous 
success  in  face  of  desperate  pressure,  the  ease,  order,  and 
completeness  of  the  triumph,  its  liberal  and  noble  spirit, 
and  the  rejection  of  all  vindictive  retaliation  —  this  was 
the  work  of  Gambetta  alone.  I  was  myself  at  that  time  in 
all  parts  of  France,  and  I  was  in  constant  intercourse  with 
leaders  of  the  movement  in  Paris  and  in  the  country.  One 
and  all  would  say,  "We  do  not  know  the  data  ourselves,  but 
Gambetta  has  the  whole  machinery  of  the  party  in  his  hands. 


LEON  GAMBETTA  103 

He  knows  the  facts  in  every  constituency  in  France.  He 
has  them  all  in  his  head ;  he  assures  us  of  success ;  and  we 
trust  him."  France  did  trust  him  in  1877 ;  and  the  Republic 
was  made. 

Thus  three  times  the  Republic  was  due  to  Gambetta: 
to  his  audacity  in  1868,  to  his  resolution  in  1870,  to  his  sa- 
gacity in  1877.  And  to  be  the  foremost  bold  man,  the  fore- 
most resolute  man,  the  foremost  sagacious  man  of  your 
generation,  is  to  be  the  great  man.  To  be  the  great  man 
who  founds  the  Republic  is  to  be  the  man  of  the  century. 
I  take  of  this  century  in  Europe,  Canning,  Peel,  Cobden, 
Gladstone,  in  England;  Cavour,  Mazzini,  Garibaldi,  in 
Italy;  Stein  and  Bismarck,  in  Germany;  Deak  and  Kos- 
suth, in  Hungary ;  Lincoln,  Grant,  and  Garfield,  in  America ; 
and  I  say  that  the  foundation  of  the  Republic  in  France  is 
a  work  far  greater  and  more  difficult  than  any  which  they 
undertook. 

The  Republic  in  France  is  the  condition  of  all  progress. 
The  old  Europe  of  feudalism  cannot  disappear,  the  new 
Europe  of  the  people  cannot  begin,  till  the  Republic  is 
founded.  It  means  the  definite  extinction  of  hereditary 
claims  of  every  kind,  the  final  admission  of  capacity  and 
merit  to  every  function  in  the  state.  The  Republic  is  the 
issue  of  all  modern  history  since  the  sixteenth  century;  it 
is  the  condition  of  all  future  progress  since  the  eighteenth 
century  ended.  It  is  the  great  political  problem  of  modern 
Europe ;  ripe  for  solution  only  in  France :  already  attained 
in  a  modified  form  by  England ;  still  hovering  in  the  balance 
elsewhere.  But  the  problem  of  the  nineteenth  century  is 
the  establishment  of  the  Republic  in  France;  and  the  man 
who  as  yet  has  done  most  to  establish  it  is  assuredly  Leon 
Gambetta. 

II.    I  take  him  next  as  the  statesman  of  the  new  social 


I04  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

strata;  and  here  again  it  is  certain  that  no  single  politician 
in  Europe  within  this  century  has  been  at  once  a  foremost 
power  in  Europe,  and  a  man  of  the  people  in  origin,  habit, 
interest,  and  sympathy.  The  type  of  Lincoln  and  Garfield 
is  common  enough  in  the  United  States.  But  in  Europe, 
in  this  century,  there  has  been  no  other  example.  Men 
like  Cavour  and  Bismarck  are  great  forces;  but  they  belong 
by  race  and  training  to  the  old  feudal  classes.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone and  Mr.  Disraeli  did  not  belong  to  them  by  birth; 
but  their  training  and  their  habits  were  as  much  those  of 
the  governing  classes  as  Lord  Derby's  or  Lord  Salisbury's. 
Mr.  Gladstone  has  the  popular  fibre  and  the  popular  sym- 
pathy; but  he  has  never  abandoned  nor  defied  the  old  aris- 
tocratic orders.  I  do  not  say  it  would  be  wise  for  an  Eng- 
lish politician  to  do  so;  but  in  France  it  is  the  condition  of 
true  Republican  force.  Neither  Thiers,  nor  Gr^vy,  nor 
any  of  the  elder  statesmen  have  ever  stood  forth  as  direct 
representatives  of  the  people.  Gambetta  alone,  of  the  men 
of  European  position,  has  done  so.  His  memorable  words, 
that  the  Government  of  France  must  pass  to  new  social 
strata,  was  no  idle  phrase. 

Gambetta,  even  if  for  a  moment  he  indulged  in  luxury, 
lived,  and  died,  and  was  buried  the  son  of  the  grocer  of 
Cahors.  He  not  only  felt  sympathy  with  the  populace,  but 
he  never  could  cease  to  be  of  the  populace  himself.  I  have 
seen  him  within  recent  years  myself  living  like  any  young 
beginner  in  literature  or  science,  as  completely  a  son  of  the 
people  as  when  he  talked  and  laughed  in  the  Cafe  Procope. 
I  am  far  from  saying  that  this  is  necessary  or  even  desirable 
in  every  country  in  Europe;  but  in  France  it  is.  The  only 
possible  Republican  ruler  in  France  is  the  man  of  the  people. 
And  it  is  of  prime  importance  to  Europe  to  show  that  the 
son  of  a  country  shopman  can  reach  the  first  place  in  his 


LEON  GAMBETTA  I05 

country  before  he  is  forty,  and  without  ceasing  to  be  the  son 
of  the  shopman.  And  here  again  I  say  that  it  is  a  thing  of 
great  moment  in  the  world  that  the  death  of  the  son  of  a 
provincial  tradesman  should  be  an  event  of  European  im- 
portance, and  that  he  should  have  the  burial  of  a  chief  of 
the  state. 

III.  I  take  him  next  as  the  first  modern  Frenchman 
who  combined  Revolutionary  ends  with  Conservative  meth- 
ods —  that  is  to  say,  who  was  resolved  to  carry  out  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Revolution,  both  those  of  1789,  1791,  and  1848, 
by  means  of  popular  conviction,  and  not  by  coups-de-main 
and  terror.  He  was,  as  no  other  Frenchman  in  this  cen- 
tury has  been,  trusted  at  once  by  the  masses  of  the  cities, 
and  by  the  masses  of  the  peasants.  The  workmen  of  the 
great  cities  of  France  are  at  present  in  a  state  of  revolutionary 
excitement;  the  peasants  and  farmers  of  the  country  are 
the  most  purely  Conservative  class  in  Europe.  I  mean 
by  Conservative,  averse  to  all  doubtful  experiments,  whether 
backwards  or  forwards.  It  is  quite  true  that  Gambetta 
was  so  Conservative  that  he  had  lost  a  large  part  of  his  influ- 
ence with  the  workmen  of  Paris  and  Lyons.  He  would 
probably,  had  he  lived,  have  lost  even  more.  But  he  died, 
by  free  vote.  Member  for  Belleville,  the  most  insurgent 
quarter  of  Paris.  He  who  did  this  at  the  same  time  possessed 
the  confidence  of  the  mass  of  the  rural  voters.  This  was 
to  unite  Order  and  Progress,  as  no  other  foremost  politician 
of  France  has  ever  done  in  our  time.  They  have  to  choose 
the  one  or  the  other  —  the  changes  desired  by  the  mass  of 
the  workmen,  or  the  permanence  loved  by  the  mass  of  the 
peasants.  They  are  avowed  Revolutionists  or  avowed  Con- 
servatives; men  who,  like  Thiers  and  Gr^vy,  influence  the 
middle  class  without  influencing  workmen  at  all;  or  men 
like  Cl^menceau,  who  lead  the  workmen,  but  not  the  rich 


Io6  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

and  the  peasantry.  Gambetta  was  the  one  Frenchman 
of  modern  times  who  could  induce  the  Revolutionists  to 
follow  constitutional  means  to  their  ends,  whilst  inducing 
the  Conservatives  to  face  and  accept  a  new  order  of  govern- 
ment. He  had  founded,  and,  had  he  lived,  he  would  pos- 
sibly have  secured,  what  M.  Lafitte  has  called  an  organic, 
progressive.  Republican  party. 

He  had  hardly  succeeded,  when  cut  short  in  death.  Nor 
can  we  be  at  all  sure  that  in  any  case  he  would  have  suc- 
ceeded in  his  task.  The  situation  of  France  is  extraordi- 
narily difficult ;  one  that  makes  government  for  the  moment 
almost  impossible.  The  democratic  mania  (and  by  that 
I  mean  the  passion  of  groups  and  of  individuals  to  reject 
every  centre  of  power  but  that  which  promotes  their  own 
particular  nostrums),  this  democratic  frenzy  has  gone  so 
far  that  we  may  well  doubt  if  any  government  by  opinion 
is  now  possible.  Free  government  means  government  by 
consent  of  the  governed  and  by  rational  guidance  of  their 
convictions.  But  when  a  society  has  got  into  that  state 
that  the  majority  of  energetic  natures  hold  it  as  the  first 
duty  of  a  man  not  to  be  governed  at  all ;  when  opinion  is  in 
that  state  that  in  place  of  rational  convictions  society  is 
saturated  with  prejudices  incompatible  with  each  other, 
and  agreeing  only  in  being  impervious  to  reason  at  all  — 
then  government  (by  conviction  at  least)  is  nearly  a  hopeless 
task.  I  am  not  saying  that  France  has  reached  this  hopeless 
state;  but  the  democratic  poison  has  gone  nearly  as  far  as 
is  compatible  with  rational  existence. 

We,  to  whom  the  Republic  is  the  normal  condition  of 
the  most  advanced  civilisation,  who  call  for  a  social  and  not 
a  mere  plutocratic  Republic,  are  as  far  as  ever  from  the 
democratic  system.  Let  us  explain  these  terms  which  are 
used  so  loosely  in  England.     By  Republican  Government 


LEON  GAMBETTA  I07 

we  mean  that  government  which  represents  the  mass  of 
the  people  without  privileged  families  of  any  kind,  or  any 
governing  class,  or  any  hereditary  office.  It  is  government 
in  the  name  of  the  people,  in  the  interests  of  all  equally,  in 
sympathy  with  the  people;  where,  so  far  as  the  state  is 
concerned,  neither  birth,  nor  wealth,  nor  class,  give  any 
prerogative  whatever.  We  mean,  in  fact,  by  Republican 
what  is  on  the  Hps  of  all  English  Liberals,  but  is  so  little 
to  be  found  in  the  facts  of  English  politics.  By  Democracy 
we  mean  the  direct  control  of  the  machinery  of  government 
by  all  citizens  equally,  or  rather,  by  such  of  them  as  can 
succeed  in  making  themselves  heard,  and  for  the  time  para- 
lysing the  rest.  This  government  by  everybody  in  turn  is 
the  negation  of  the  true  Republican  Government;  for  in 
place  of  being  the  government  by  conviction  and  consent 
of  the  people  in  the  interest  of  all,  it  is  the  arbitrary  enforce- 
ment of  a  set  of  narrow  interests  by  small  groups  in  endless 
succession. 

The  virus  of  democracy  (which,  in  the  sense  in  which 
I  use  it,  is  so  little  republican  or  popular  government,  that 
it  is  rather  a  series  of  impotent  tyrannies  by  petty  groups), 
the  virus  of  democracy  may  have  gone  so  far  in  France,  that 
Gambetta  would  have  attempted  to  organise  it  in  vain. 
Certain  it  is,  that  with  all  his  democratic  training,  and  all 
his  democratic  habits,  his  very  existence  was  an  antidote 
to  democracy.  Every  great  personality,  every  national 
reputation,  every  creative  political  force,  is  in  itself  the 
negation  of  democracy.  Democracy,  or  everybody  ruling 
for  his  day  in  turn,  and  in  the  meantime,  till  his  turn  comes, 
furiously  assailing  every  one  whose  turn  is  come,  is  hushed 
into  silence  by  the  very  existence  of  a  great  man.  A  great 
statesman  is  ipso  facto  as  fatal  to  democracy  as  a  great  gen- 
eral is  incompatible  with  mutiny.     I  am  not  speaking  of 


Io8  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

England  nor  of  the  English  Parliament,  where  different 
circumstances  make  different  conditions,  I  am  speaking 
of  France  to-day,  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  her  one 
chance  of  good  government  lies  in  the  hope  that  her  govern- 
ment will  assume  a  personal  and  not  a  democratic  form. 
By  personal  I  do  not  mean  despotic ;  certainly  not  military, 
nothing  imperial,  not  a  rule  of  bayonets,  and  prisons,  and 
exile,  and  the  state  of  siege ;  but  the  government  of  a  capable 
man  or  men,  freely  accepted  and  followed  by  the  will  of  an 
intelligent  people.  In  a  way  we  have  something  of  the  kind 
here ;  in  a  way  they  have  something  of  the  kind  in  America. 
The  great  chance  of  their  having  it  in  France  lay  in  the  future 
of  Gambetta.  I  am  far  from  saying  that  in  such  a  situation 
even  he  would  have  succeeded;  but  his  life  offered  chances 
of  such  a  thing  that  we  look  for  in  vain  in  France. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  imply  that  we  should  approve  of 
all  his  schemes,  or  even  condone  his  later  policy.  I  am 
free  to  acknowledge  that  of  late  I  have  earnestly  repudiated 
many  leading  features  of  his  policy.  His  attack  upon  the 
Catholic  fraternities,  his  idea  of  a  state  Church,  of  a  state 
education,  of  state  public  works,  are  contrary,  I  hold  it, 
to  any  just  and  radical  principles;  whilst  the  miserable 
aggression  in  Tunis,  and  the  criminal  spoliation  of  Egypt, 
fill  us  with  the  warmest  indignation.  For  the  most  part,  in 
the  last  two  years,  I  have  found  myself  more  often  on  the 
side  of  Clemenceau,  and  heartily  desirous  of  seeing  the  policy 
of  Clemenceau  succeed. 

But  in  the  one  great  necessity  of  France,  the  formation 
of  a  governing  party  or  power,  perfectly  Republican,  at 
once  progressive  and  Conservative,  I  ask  myself  if  Clemen- 
ceau has  the  prospect  of  succeeding  where  Gambetta  failed. 
By  all  means  let  us  support  him  if  prospect  there  be.  But 
I  am  not  sanguine.     Clemenceau  is  so  far  unable  to  deal  with 


LEON  GAMBETTA  lOQ 

Democracy,  in  that  he  is  himself  a  fanatical  adherent  of 
the  Democratic  creed.  To  him  the  defeating  of  any  per- 
sonal power  is  the  first  duty  of  a  citizen;  whereas  the  for- 
mation of  a  personal  power  is  the  first  necessity  of  the  Re- 
public. To  him  Opportunism  is  the  worst  of  political 
crimes;  whereas  Opportunism  is  simply  the  basis  of  all 
true  statesmanship.  To  him,  the  beginning  and  end  of 
politics  is  the  logical  fulfilment  of  the  Revolution;  whereas 
the  condition  of  fulfilling  the  Revolution  is  to  make  it  the 
gradual  development  of  Order.  On  all  these  grounds, 
although  on  so  many  a  recent  question  I  hold  Clemenceau 
right  and  Gambetta  wrong,  we  would  have  held  to  the  party 
of  Gambetta  and  not  to  that  of  Clemenceau.  If  we  must 
choose  between  the  Irreconcilables  and  the  Opportunists, 
then  Opportunism  means  practical  government,  and  Irrec- 
oncilability means  a  pedantic  doctrine.  To  have  thrown 
over  Gambetta  for  Clemenceau  is  the  very  type  of  the  demo- 
cratic frenzy.^ 

The  one  hope  for  France  is  the  rise  of  a  great  Republican 
chief.  And  circumstances  had  so  worked  that  for  the  mo- 
ment Gambetta  was  the  only  possible  Republican  chief. 
Power  in  France  rests  in  the  hands  of  some  seven  or  eight 
millions  of  electors;  and  these  seven  or  eight  millions  know 
it,  and  mean  to  keep  the  power.  Since  the  death  of  Louis 
Napoleon  and  Thiers,  Gambetta's  name  was  the  one  name 
of  living  Frenchmen  which  was  known  to  every  one  of  these 
millions.  Grevy's  is  unknown  to  one-third  of  them,  per- 
haps; the  name  of  Clemenceau  is  yet  unknown  to  two- 
thirds  of  them.  The  extraordinary  events  of  1870  had  car- 
ried the  name  and  the  fame  of  Gambetta  into  every  cottage 

'  How  different  a  man  is  the  Clemenceau  of  1908  from  the  Clemenceau 
of  1883.  Twenty-five  years  of  struggles  and  defeats,  Dreyfus,  and  sixty- 
seven  years  of  life  have  turned  the  Opposition  orator  into  the  successful 
statesman  (1908). 


no  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

and  garret  in  France.  Nothing  that  Clemenceau,  or  Gr^vy, 
or  Jules  Simon,  or  Rochefort,  or  any  one  of  these  could  do, 
could  bring  their  names  or  their  characters  before  the  mass 
of  the  electors.  The  good  sense  of  Gr^vy,  the  political 
logic  of  Clemenceau,  are  admirable  forces;  but  they  can- 
not reach  the  men  who  hold  the  power.  They  cannot  speak 
in  the  tones  which  are  heard  through  France;  they  cannot 
rouse  the  ideas  of  the  distant  sluggish  millions.  Grdvy 
may  issue  a  hundred  messages,  and  Clemenceau  may  de- 
liver a  hundred  speeches,  but  not  one  word  of  these  will 
reach  the  dull  ear  of  the  herdsmen  in  the  Morbihan,  and  the 
vinedressers  of  the  Gironde,  and  the  woodcutters  of  the 
Jura,  and  the  ploughmen  of  the  Beauce. 

But  when  Gambetta  spoke,  France  heard  it  and  knew 
it,  from  the  North  Sea  to  the  Mediterranean,  The  stout 
farmers  and  the  shepherds  and  the  peasants,  from  the  Pas 
de  Calais  to  the  Pyrenees,  and  the  workmen  of  Belleville, 
and  of  Perrache,  and  of  the  Cannebiere,  of  Lille,  and  Bor- 
deaux, and  Rouen,  and  Havre  —  every  Frenchman  knew 
it  and  understood  it,  and,  more  or  less,  was  moved  or  influ- 
enced by  it.  France  is  politically  a  bilingual  nation.  One- 
half  speaks  a  political  language,  and  lives  in  a  political 
world,  which  is  wholly  unknown  to  the  other.  They  who 
address  one  half  of  the  nation  are  incomprehensible  to  the 
other.  Gambetta  alone  of  modern  Frenchmen  was  bilingual 
too.  He  found  a  language  that  both  understood,  and  he 
alone  could  address  France.  He  combined  Order  and 
Progress  —  that  is.  Revolutionary  ends  and  a  Conservative 
spirit.  Here,  then,  was  the  political  force.  France  is  a 
Democratic  Republic,  whose  only  possible  government  is 
a  popular  chief,  Revolutionary  by  his  genius  and  Conserva- 
tive by  his  instincts.  Such  an  one  was  Gambetta,  and  for 
my  part  I  see  no  other. 


LEON  GAMBETTA  III 

IV.  I  pass  to  the  last  of  the  points  which  remain  to  notice, 
and  my  words  on  this  great  man,  or  this  great  torso  of  a 
great  man,  are  ended.  He  is  the  one  European  statesman 
of  this  century  who  systematically  and  formally  repudiated 
any  kind  of  acceptance  of  Priesthood.  His  Opportunist 
theory  of  a  state  Church  was  no  doubt  as  wrong  in  principle 
as  his  persecution  of  the  Catholic  Orders.  But  about  his 
formal  rejection  of  all  theology  there  can  be  no  doubt;  his 
life,  his  death,  his  burial,  all  alike  bear  witness  to  it.  It  is 
common  enough  with  minor  politicians  of  all  types  in  France. 
But  when  we  see  the  way  in  which  the  responsible  rulers  of 
France  have  entered  into  partnership  with  the  priests,  when 
we  remember  all  that  in  that  line  was  done  by  the  Bourbons, 
Napoleons,  and  Orleans,  by  men  like  Guizot  and  Thiers, 
MacMahon  and  De  Broglie,  we  see  here  a  new  thing  — 
a  statesman  of  the  first  rank  in  Europe  who  formally  repu- 
diates creeds  in  any  shape,  the  first  ruler  of  France  in  this 
century  who  has  chosen  to  rule  on  purely  human  sanctions. 
Had  his  rejection  of  theology  been  simply  negative,  had  he 
been  a  mere  sceptic  like  Thiers,  or  an  empty  scoffer  like 
Rochefort,  it  is  little  that  we  should  find  to  honour  and 
respect  in  his  secular  belief.  But  the  soul  of  Gambetta 
was  not  the  soul  of  scoffer  or  sceptic.  He  had  a  reUgion 
in  his  soul,  though  he  had  neither  God  nor  saint,  though 
he  never  bowed  the  knee  in  the  temple  of  Rimmon.  His 
religion  was  France,  an  imperfect  and  but  narrow  image 
indeed  of  Humanity,  but  a  part  of  Humanity  and  an  organ 
and  an  emblem  of  it.  His  religious  life,  like  his  political 
life,  remained  but  a  fragment  and  a  hope.  Both  have  closed 
at  the  age  of  forty-four.  What  a  future  might  have  lain 
beyond  had  he  lived  to  the  age  of  Thiers  or  Guizot ! 

It  is  a  thing  which  the  world  will  remember  one  day  — 
that  vast  ceremony  in  Paris  on  the  6th  of  January  last  — 


112  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

such  a  funeral  as  no  emperor  ever  had,  a  day  that  recalled 
the  gathering  of  the  dawn  of  the  Revolution  in  1789;  when 
all  France  helped  to  bury  the  one  Frenchman  who  stood 
before  Europe  as  Bismarck  and  Gladstone  alone  of  living 
men  stand  before  Europe  to-day,  and  from  first  to  last  in 
that  throng  where  Paris  did  honour  to  the  son  of  the  dealer 
of  Cahors,  no  Catholic  emblem  or  priest  was  seen;  not  a 
thought  but  for  the  great  human  loss  and  human  sorrow, 
not  a  word  but  of  human  and  earthly  hopes.  For  the  first 
time  in  this  century  Europe  looked  on  and  saw  one  of  its 
foremost  men  laid  in  his  rest  by  a  nation  in  grief  without  priest 
or  church,  prayer  or  hymn. 

The  nation  laid  him  in  his  rest  with  an  honour  that  no 
service  could  equal.  For  death  is  peculiarly  the  sphere 
of  the  power  and  resources  of  the  religion  of  the  future.  It 
will  find  for  the  last  offices  of  its  great  sons  noble  words  and 
affecting  ceremonies,  before  which  the  conventional  requiems 
will  sound  hollow.  It  will  clothe  the  memory  of  the  great 
man  with  all  the  memories  of  the  servants  of  Humanity, 
whose  work  he  has  helped,  and  whose  great  company  he 
has  joined  at  last.  And  in  the  spirit  of  the  immortal  tradi- 
tions of  patriotic  defence,  let  us  remember  with  honour  the 
great  citizen  who  has  been  borne  to  the  premature  grave, 
wherein  were  laid  the  unrevealed  future  of  Danton,  and 
Hoche,  and  Condorcet. 


THE   MAKING   OF  ITALY 

(i860) 

The  three  following  studies  on  the  Italian  kingdom  and  its 
makers,  Cavour  and  Garibaldi,  were  the  result  of  visits 
to  Italy  and  intercourse  with  the  leaders  of  the  National- 
ist cause.  At  Oxford  I  had  been  the  friend  and  pupil 
of  Count  Aurelio  Saffi,  one  of  the  Triumvirs  at  Rome 
with  Mazzini  and  Armellini  during  the  defence  of  the 
Republic  in  184Q  under  Garibaldi.  By  Saffi  I  was 
introduced  to  Mazzini,  Campanella,  Pianciani,  and 
other  Italian  exiles,  and  I  travelled  in  Italy  with  intro- 
ductions in  i8jj  and  1855.  When  the  Italian  cause 
was  taken  up  by  Napoleon  III.  early  in  i8jg,  I  took 
deep  interest  in  the  question,  and  wrote  letters  thereon  in 
the  Daily  News.  This  brought  me  into  relation  with 
Francis  Newman,  Count  Pulszki,  the  friend  of  Kossuth, 
G.  J.  Holyoake,  Count  Pepoli,  and  other  Italianissimi. 
Meetings  took  place  in  my  chambers  in  Lincoln's  Inn, 
and  we  projected  the  formation  of  an  Italian  Association 
to  promote  the  cause  by  appealing  to  English  sympathy 
in  the  press  and  by  public  meetings  and  the  Trades  Unions 
and  radical   organisations. 

This  project  was  suddenly  cut  short  by  Napoleon's 

abandonment  of  the  campaign  by  the  Peace  of  Villa- 

franca  {July  18 jg).     In  August  I  started  off  to  Italy 

with  ample  introductions,  and  I  undertook  to  write  letters 

I  113 


114  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

to  the  Morning  Post  and  to  the  Daily  News  as  indepen- 
dent and  honorary  correspondent.  At  Turin  I  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Senateur  Matteucci,  Cavoufs  Flor- 
entine associate,  Baron  Poerio,  the  prisoner  of  Bomba 
in  Naples,  Count  Mamiani,  and  others.  With  intro- 
ductions from  them  I  visited  Genoa,  Leghorn,  Florence, 
Siena,  Lucca,  Prato,  Bologna,  Ravenna,  Modena,  Parma, 
Milan,  and  Lugano,  at  each  place  having  interviews 
with  the  local  governments  of  the  Duchies  —  Prince 
Pepoli,  Baron  Ricasoli,  Farini,  etc.,  and  the  chiefs  of 
the  Nationalist  movement.  They  furnished  me  with 
abundant  documents  and  information.  I  also  saw  the 
levies  of  volunteers,  and  met  Garibaldi  in  Romagna  at 
the  head  of  his  own  corps.  The  letters  I  wrote  to  the 
Morning  Post  and  to  the  Daily  News  were  studied,  I 
understand,  by  Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord  John  Russell, 
then  Prime  Minister  and  Foreign  Secretary  respectively. 
These  essays  appeared  in  the  Westminster  Review, 
January  1861,  six  months  before  the  death  of  Cavour 
{1908). 

Impersonated  under  the  great  names  and  the  marked 
characters  of  Cavour  and  Garibaldi,  there  stand  confronted 
the  two  principles  of  policy,  the  aristocratic  and  the  popular, 
the  legal  and  the  revolutionary;  and  the  two  great  parties 
of  order  and  of  movement.  Just  as  the  French  Revolution 
was,  though  principally  social,  yet  in  a  great  degree  national ; 
so  indeed  the  Italian,  though  originally  national,  is  in  no 
small  degree  social.  The  former  commenced  in  the  effort 
to  substitute  one  form  of  society  for  another,  but  it  ended 
in  a  struggle  for  existence  with  its  neighbours.  The  latter 
commenced  a  struggle  for  national  existence,  which  it  can- 
not carry  to  its  issue  without  calling  into  action  many  of 


THE   MAKING   OF   ITALY  II5 

those  elements  out  of  which  states  are  compacted,  and  facing 
at  least  some  of  the  difficulties  which  disturb  the  union  and 
harmony  of  orders,  classes,  and  institutions. 

On  the  one  side  we  have  seen  the  action  of  the  Govern- 
ment, or  rather  of  one  pre-eminent  statesman,  moulding 
the  material  and  political  strength  of  a  small  state  into  one 
compact  power;  divergent  parties  and  purposes  welded 
into  a  definite  national  policy.  Next,  the  action  of  an  estab- 
lished and  strong  system  has  been  extended  to  foreign  powers, 
and  the  whole  machinery  of  international  statecraft  has  been 
moved  and  guided  by  one  strong  and  practised  hand.  At 
last,  by  a  consummate  stroke  of  daring  and  ingenuity,  an 
auxiliary  of  overwhelming  strength  has  been  invoked  to  be 
used,  watched,  and  eventually  resisted.  Besides  which,  a 
variety  of  local  revolutions  needed  to  be  tempered  and  guided 
under  legal  forms  and  in  the  presence  of  retrograde  parties; 
and  a  work  of  internecine  struggle  carried  out  under  the 
jealous  eyes  of  European  Governments.  The  power  which 
could  do  this  must  above  all  things  have  possessed  patience, 
tenacity,  self-command,  experience,  and  practical  sagacity, 
and  no  small  share  of  those  solid  qualities  out  of  which  grow 
the  orderly  consolidations  of  states.  Such  an  element  ex- 
isted in  the  rich  and  educated  classes  of  Upper  Italy,  amongst 
the  nobility,  the  landowners,  the  professions,  and  the  trades 
of  the  towns ;  men  who,  sometimes  pedantic  and  often  over- 
cautious, in  the  main  retained  the  respect  and  confidence 
of  the  people,  and  to  a  man  were  ennobled  by  the  national 
sentiment  and  zeal  for  order  and  rational  government. 
Such  men,  whose  services  are  too  much  depreciated  because 
far  from  brilliant,  formed  in  reality  the  strong  conservative 
element  by  which  alone  the  hot  passions  of  the  time  have 
been  mastered  and  guided;  and  they  found  in  Cavour  an 
exponent  and  chief  who  as  far  surpassed  them  all  in  his 


Il6  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

instinct  towards  systematic  and  orderly  organisation,  as  in 
his  power  of  grasping  and  controlling  the  more  vigorous 
forces  of  the  revolutionary  element. 

On  the  other  side  we  have  seen  the  conception  of  national 
existence  matured  and  upheld  through  dreary  years  of  suffer- 
ing by  a  few  brilliant  intellects,  gradually  growing  up  as 
the  religion  of  the  finer  minds,  until  it  at  last  spread  to  be 
the  passion  of  all  that  is  generous  in  the  national  character. 
With  them  it  became  a  principle  too  sacred  to  be  tampered 
with,  too  vital  to  suffer  excuse  or  delay,  which  demanded 
every  sacrifice  and  was  capable  of  every  achievement.  These 
ardent  spirits  addressed  and  found  response  in  the  hearts 
of  the  people;  they  repudiated  the  course  of  diplomatic 
intrigue  as  much  as  that  of  cautious  legality.  Believing 
more  in  enthusiasm  than  in  organisation,  and  in  self-devo- 
tion than  in  ability,  they  are  impatient  of  the  delays  and 
scruples  of  the  party  of  order.  Devoted  to  their  principle 
of  national  regeneration,  they  contemn  those  social  influ- 
ences which  unless  in  moments  of  extraordinary  excitement 
virtually  dominate  and  represent  every  society.  They  thus 
quite  misconceive  and  undervalue  the  weight  bearing  upon 
the  future  of  their  country  from  the  will  or  policy  of  foreign 
states,  as  well  as  that  of  the  rich,  educated,  or  powerful 
individuals  at  home.  With  feelings  which  in  every  great 
crisis  do  indeed  make  the  life  of  national  movements,  they 
had  neither  the  patience  nor  the  judgment  necessary  for 
sustained  preparation,  or  for  handling  complicated  situa- 
tions and  rival  parties.  Besides  which,  they  have  so  little 
sympathy  for  those  sentiments,  interests,  or  habits,  upon 
which  the  order  and  obedience  of  masses  of  men  repose, 
that  they  force  their  own  enthusiastic  ideas  upon  popula- 
tions quite  incapable  of  adopting  them,  and  govern  alter- 
nately with  untimely  violence  and  fatal  negligence. 


THE   MAKING   OF   ITALY  II7 

Such  are  the  elements  which  have  been  at  work  during 
the  whole  of  this  recent  Italian  movement,  occasionally 
acting  harmoniously  as  one,  then  separately  but  in  common, 
at  times  in  open  hostility;  but  both  indispensable  and  both 
inevitable.  Cavour  and  Garibaldi,  the  leaders  of  these 
two  parties,  are  not,  however,  their  simple  representatives. 
To  all  the  habitual  self-restraint,  the  knowledge  and  patient 
training  of  the  Conservative  classes,  Cavour  adds  the  full 
power  of  conceiving  and  using  the  enthusiasm  of  popular 
feeling.  But  with  all  his  superiority  to  his  own  order  and 
party,  he  does  not  and  cannot  inspire  in  others  that  passionate 
love  of  national  existence,  that  moral  elevation  of  character, 
that  unfaltering  self-devotion  and  perfect  simplicity,  which 
seem  to  beam  from  the  countenance  of  the  great  popular 
hero.  With  his  admirable  versatility,  sagacity,  and  know- 
ledge of  mankind,  the  great  minister  has  been  able  to  con- 
duct with  consummate  skill  an  undertaking  as  great  and 
difficult  as  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  a  statesman.  But  the  very 
ability  of  his  combinations  and  devices,  the  very  brilliancy 
of  his  achievements,  have  proved  in  no  small  degree  fatal  to 
the  moral  strength  of  his  position.  He  has  mixed  himself 
up  in  compromises  and  intrigues,  and  in  deceptions  which, 
however  excusable  in  a  politician,  are  fatal  to  the  honour 
of  a  great  national  regenerator. 

The  services  of  Cavour  to  his  country  have  been  indeed 
indispensable;  without  him  neither  the  first  possibility  of 
life,  nor  the  actual  maintenance  of  existence,  would  have 
been  practicable;  but  he  is  not  all,  and  he  needed  a  very 
different  colleague.  All  that  is  wanting  in  Cavour  is  sup- 
plied in  Garibaldi.  Utterly  incapable  of  civil  administra- 
tion as  the  noble  soldier  has  proved,  he  has  inspired  in  the 
heart  of  every  Italian  emotions  which  no  Government  orator 
or  diplomatist  could  awaken.     When  a  ministry  had  com- 


Il8  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

pleted  a  bargain  which  nothing  but  necessity  (yet  unproved) 
could  excuse,  the  voice  of  the  bravest  of  the  brave  was  heard 
in  the  council  of  the  nation  choked  with  shame  and  indigna- 
tion. That  broken  protest  sank  deep  into  the  hearts  of  the 
people;  it  taught  them  to  rely  on  their  own  sense  of  dignity, 
and  not  on  the  hired  favours  of  strangers.  Again,  when  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  nation  was  sinking  under  the  chilling 
process  of  consolidation  and  diplomatic  manoeuvring,  the 
same  voice  aroused  them  to  a  sense  of  the  task  still  before 
them,  and  awoke  the  stifled  cry  of  national  reunion.  By 
him  the  sense  of  public  honour  and  pride,  wounded  to  the 
quick  by  a  humiliating  sacrifice,  was  again  called  into  activ- 
ity. By  him  also  the  desire  of  national  existence  has  been 
raised  from  a  line  of  policy  into  a  sacred  duty,  and  patriotism 
has  been  elevated  into  a  religion  by  which  interest,  habit, 
and  personal  ambition  are  to  be  transformed  and  disappear. 
Lastly,  it  was  the  Dictator  alone  who  could  give  to  the  regen- 
eration of  Italy  that  character  of  brotherly  reunion,  of  moral 
purification,  of  popular  simplicity  and  intensity,  which  were 
little  dreamt  of  in  the  Cabinet,  the  Court,  or  the  Parliament. 
Their  country  needed  both.  Each  had  his  own  great 
part  to  bear  in  the  contest.  It  has  not  fallen  to  the  lot  of 
Italy  to  unite  in  one  party,  as  in  our  own  Revolution,  the 
most  fiery  enthusiasm  with  the  sternest  discipline,  or  to 
create  a  leader  who,  like  Cromwell,  could  be  at  once  the 
devotee  of  a  sacred  cause  and  the  consummate  politician. 
With  them,  principle  and  policy  have  had  a  separate  repre- 
sentative, and  the  claims  of  neither  one  nor  the  other  should 
be  exaggerated  or  undervalued.  The  passion  of  the  soldier 
has  been  curbed  by  the  providence  of  the  statesman,  whilst 
the  skill  of  the  minister  has  been  ennobled  by  the  energy  of 
a  hero.  Without  Garibaldi,  the  intensity  no  less  than  the 
character  of  the  popular  feeling  was  in  danger  of  being  lost ; 


THE   MAKING   OF  ITALY  II 9 

had  he  been  master,  it  would  have  been  ruined  in  futile  enter- 
prises. As  in  every  regular  act,  heart  and  mind  must  con- 
cur, the  one  to  suggest,  the  other  to  control;  so  it  has  been 
the  duty  of  the  hero  to  inspire,  of  the  statesman  to  guide  the 
popular  effort.  That  which  the  one  felt,  the  other  thought; 
the  instinct  of  one  has  been  matured  by  the  experience  of 
the  other.  The  one  has  made  his  country  respected,  the 
other  has  made  it  honoured ;  the  one  has  increased  its  power, 
the  other  has  elevated  its  character.  Arm  and  head,  heart 
and  brain,  feeling  and  intelligence,  may  be  contrasted,  but 
cannot  be  separated  without  danger.  It  may  not  be  possible, 
or  even  desirable,  exactly  to  decide  the  share  which  each 
may  have  had  in  a  common  work;  but  it  would  be  a  pro- 
found mistake  to  exalt  one  service  at  the  expense  of  the  other, 
when  both  are  indispensable. 

In  judging  Cavour  we  are  impressed  by  that  in  which  he 
surpasses  all  modern  statesmen  —  the  faculty  of  prevision. 
In  this,  pre-eminently  the  first  duty  of  a  politician,  the  pres- 
ent century  has  shown  no  example  at  all  comparable.^  In 
him  alone  shall  we  find  anything  like  a  systematic  and  patient 
elaboration  of  a  great  national  object.  There,  at  least,  we 
have  an  instance  of  a  Government  far  ahead  of  its  people, 
creating  and  directing  an  active  public  opinion  towards  one 
object,  and  subjecting  the  whole  of  its  action  to  the  slow 
work  of  preparing  for  a  distant  and  gigantic  enterprise.  For 
ten  years  now  the  whole  public  action  of  Piedmont  —  mate- 
rial, political,  and  moral,  in  foreign  as  well  as  domestic 
policy;  in  Parliament  as  in  Cabinet,  from  one  end  to  the 
other  of  the  public  service  —  has  been  centred  in  the  effort 

'  In  i860  Bismarck  was  ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg,  estranged  from 
the  Prussian  ministry  and  little  known  outside  diplomatic  circles.  Of 
course  he  ultimately  made  an  even  grander  career.  But  his  work  was 
neither  so  difficult,  nor  so  honourable,  nor  so  sagacious  as  that  of  Cavour 
(1908). 


I20  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

to  prepare  for  that  part  which  she  has  lately  been  called  on 
to  perform.  It  was  from  the  joint  action  of  all  these  means 
—  by  diplomacy,  by  public  opinion,  by  material  organisa- 
tion, by  attention  to  the  finances,  the  army,  the  railways, 
the  schools,  the  ecclesiastical  bodies,  and  the  civil  service 
of  the  nation,  that  Count  Cavour  has  looked  for  the  success 
of  his  undertaking. 

The  history  of  his  administration  affords  a  complete  in- 
stance of  a  statesman  who  works  out  a  profound  policy  with 
unfailing  sagacity  and  determination.  The  details  of  man- 
agement have  been  no  less  admirable  than  the  scheme  itself. 
The  perfect  publicity  and  distinctness  of  the  object  sought, 
and  the  harmony  with  which  all  developments  of  national 
activity  fell  into  the  grand  purpose,  is  the  best  proof  of  the 
soundness  and  vitality  of  the  policy.  No  other  could  afford 
any  basis  for  sustained  and  combined  action.  Such  a  type 
of  Government  belongs,  indeed,  more  to  the  past  times  in 
which  States  have  been  created,  than  to  these  latter  days, 
in  which  they  are  feebly  or  carelessly  governed.  It  contains 
nothing  of  that  irregular  and  incoherent  movement  which, 
since  the  French  Revolution,  has  marked  more  or  less  the 
European  ministries.  To  carry  a  few  popular  measures, 
to  provide  for  the  wants  or  dangers  of  the  present,  to  under- 
take or  surrender  a  course  of  action  under  the  sway  of  public 
opinion,  to  assume  in  Europe  that  position  which  for  the 
moment  seemed  most  conducive  to  the  national  prestige, 
has  been  the  crown  of  the  aims  of  any  modern  ministry. 

The  work  accomplished  by  Count  Cavour  belongs  rather 
to  that  order  of  statesmanship  which  has  created  nations, 
changed  the  future  history  of  Europe,  and  consolidated  new 
eras  of  social  and  political  life.  For  the  true  parallels  or 
rivals  to  him,  we  must  look,  not  amongst  the  Palmerstons  or 
Talleyrands,  or  even  the  Peels  or  Guizots  of  our  day,  but 


THE  MAKING   OF   ITALY  121 

amongst  the  company  of  William  of  Orange,  of  Frederick  11. , 
and  George  Washington.  Not  that  he  in  any  great  degree 
resembles  any  of  these  great  men ;  he  may  not  equal  some  of 
them  in  moral  elevation  of  character,  though  undoubtedly 
his  mental  capacities  are  not  wholly  unequal  to  theirs.  But 
it  is  to  the  class  of  great  creative  statesmen,  and  not  to  that 
of  able  administrators  or  consummate  diplomatists,  that  he 
belongs.  It  is  not  from  such  men  that  we  can  look  for  the 
organisation  of  all  the  conflicting  principles  and  forces  in  a 
highly  cultivated  nation,  and  the  formation  of  a  great  living 
whole  out  of  the  scattered  fragments  of  an  oppressed  race. 
It  is  a  peculiar  genius  for  government  which  can  grasp  as  a 
central  idea  that  one  principle  of  action  which  can  alone 
give  cohesion  and  vitality  to  disorganised  communities,  can 
make  it  practical  enough  for  the  most  unenlightened,  and 
broad  enough  for  the  most  aspiring;  and  at  the  same  time 
develop  it  in  action  under  all  the  restraints  imposed  by  pre- 
scription and  the  sluggishness  which  timidity  and  selfishness 
impose  on  large  classes  of  mankind.  The  conception  of 
national  unity  is  indeed  primarily  due  to  those  impassioned 
thinkers  of  all  schools  who  upheld  the  sacred  tradition  of  the 
Italian  race,  and  in  perhaps  the  highest  degree  to  that  un- 
happy genius  who  was  himself  the  least  capable  of  creating  it. 
To  Mazzini,  it  is  true,  as  thinker,  poet,  preacher,  or  agita- 
tor —  as  indeed  anything  short  of  politician  —  is  due  in  this 
generation  the  strength  of  that  principle  which  is  the  very 
life  of  Italy  at  this  day.  But  however  we  admit  his  claims 
as  a  teacher,  which  as  a  conspirator  he  has  done  so  much 
to  nullify,  it  is  clear  that  had  not  Cavour  found  means  to 
make  that  notion  of  Italian  nationality  patent  to  the  mind 
of  all  Europe,  and  made  it  a  practical  and  intelligible  creed 
to  all  classes  of  Italians,  forcing  the  principle  forward  under 
a  constant  shield  of  order  and  right,  the  very  idea  itself  would 


122  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

long  have  remained  in  the  breasts  of  the  small  circle  of  noble 
and  intelligent  spirits.  It  is  not  by  eloquent  appeals  or  by 
desperate  self-sacrifice  that  the  mass  of  the  public  can  be 
penetrated.  It  has  been  the  task  of  Count  Cavour,  by  a 
long  series  of  public  acts,  all  within  the  sphere  of  sound  and 
legal  administration,  to  awaken  in  the  minds  of  the  great 
body  of  his  countrymen  a  sense  of  national  right,  duty,  and 
dignity,  and  to  conciliate  the  spirit  of  freedom  with  that  of 
subordination  to  one  powerful  will. 

The  difficulties  which  met  Cavour  on  his  first  accession 
to  power  were  such  as  even  now  it  is  difficult  thoroughly  to 
estimate.  The  defeat  of  Novara  had  left  the  Piedmontese 
kingdom  humiliated  and  weakened,  and  yet  fatally  impli- 
cated in  the  insurrectionary  movement  which  each  succeed- 
ing event  in  Europe  contributed  to  discredit.  There  the 
Church  and  a  semi-feudal  landed  aristocracy  possessed  a 
strong  traditional  power.  The  whole  of  the  administration 
of  the  little  state  was  singularly  backward  and  imperfect. 
Its  legal  and  its  commercial  system,  its  municipal  institu- 
tions, the  organisation  of  its  army,  of  education,  of  the  pub- 
lic service,  and  of  religious  bodies,  its  tariff,  its  roads,  and 
system  of  communication,  and  lastly,  its  own  national  unity, 
were  below  those  of  nearly  every  other  state  in  the  Peninsula, 
except  the  Roman  itself.  In  the  other  provinces  of  Italy, 
monarchical  sentiments  had  not  begun  to  exist,  and  national 
greatness  was  known  only  in  the  language  of  insurrectionary 
appeals.  All  the  sad  honours  of  the  late  campaign  had  been 
won  by  the  old  municipal  spirit,  and  Manin  and  Garibaldi 
had  upheld  the  glory  of  historic  republics.  The  strength 
with  which  upon  the  shattered  efforts  of  the  national  uprising 
the  old  empire  of  the  foreigner  had  been  established,  had 
crushed  out  all  but  the  hope  of  feeble  palliatives  and  evasions 
in  the  minds  of  the  more  cautious,  and  desperate  conspiracies 


THE   MAKING  OF  ITALY  1 23 

in  those  of  the  bolder.  Parties  were  swaying  between  hope- 
less submission  and  hopeless  rebellion,  amidst  a  state  of 
things  in  Europe  which  seemed  at  each  step  to  be  extinguish- 
ing the  last  embers  of  revolution.  By  degrees  two  distinct 
courses  of  action  became  visible,  and  two  rival  parties  made 
their  existence  felt. 

The  constitutional  or  moderate  party  adopted  one;    the 
party  of  action  or  the  national  party  the  other.     It  has  been 
the  work  of  Cavour  to  vivify  and  fuse  the  two.     On  the  one 
hand,  the  party  which  comprised  the  rich  and  noble  classes, 
the  more  timid  natures,  and  the  bulk  of  the  commercial 
public,  bowed  down  by  the  great  calamity  of  the  last  effort, 
preached  against  any  new  risk  or  immediate  action,  looked 
only  for  the  future  to  the  action  of  time  and  increased  in- 
telligence in  the  people,  and  hoped  by  patient  conduct  and 
ingenious  management  to  alleviate  rather  than  extinguish 
the  national  degradation  whenever  the  circumstances  of  the 
day  or  the  public  opinion  of  Europe  offered  an  opportunity. 
Violently  denouncing  all  extreme  measures,  and  resolute  to 
expose  themselves  to  no  fresh  disaster,  they  hoped  to  amelio- 
rate the  position  of  their  country  by  legal  resistance,  and  by 
the  means  of  those  liberal  institutions  which  survived  the 
wreck,  by  appealing  to  the  public  opinion  and  Governments 
of  Europe,  and  in  particular  by  the  introduction  of  a  par- 
liamentary system.     Opposed  to  this  was  the  policy  of  the 
revolutionary  party,  who,  having  their  headquarters  at  Milan, 
possessed  no  insignificant  strength  both  at  Genoa  and  Turin. 
Under  this  head  belong  all  those  parties,  whether  republi- 
can or  monarchist,  who  looked  forward  to  insurrection  as  the 
means  of  restitution,  and  laboured  by  conspiracies,  associa- 
tions, and  propagandism  towards  the  freedom  of  the  Italian 
race  by  a  general  explosion  of  revolutionary  energy. 
This  party  indeed  was  animated  by  a  far  deeper  devotion 


124  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

to  the  common  cause,  and  felt  more  deeply  the  miseries  of 
the  present,  than  the  supporters  of  the  more  patient  and 
cooler  policy.  They  felt  indeed  the  immense  necessity  for 
action,  and  unhesitating  confidence  in  the  capacity  of  their 
race.  They  saw,  moreover,  the  grand  truth  that  all  the 
patience  and  prudence  of  their  rivals  never  would  result  in 
creating  that  deep  national  enthusiasm  which  alone  could 
produce  a  restored  nation ;  and  that  the  future  of  their  coun- 
try could  no  longer  be  left  to  ministerial  ingenuity,  but  must 
be  made  the  first  and  last  of  public  duties. 

Standing  as  we  do  upon  the  pedestal  of  past  events,  we 
can  now  discern  that  neither  one  policy  nor  the  other  sepa- 
rately had  a  chance  of  success.  With  all  their  efforts  towards 
material  and  domestic  advancement,  with  their  old  ideas  of 
regular  and  peaceful  efforts,  the  moderates  could  never  have 
awakened  the  sentiment  of  national  reunion,  or  forced  upon 
Piedmont  the  danger  and  the  glory  of  the  national  chieftain- 
ship. They  possessed  no  means  and  little  taste  for  reach- 
ing the  popular  sympathies,  and  were  devoid  of  all  conception 
of  a  social  regeneration  as  bound  up  in  the  national  revival. 
Nor  could  their  doctrines  attract  the  nobler  spirits  or  the 
finer  intellects,  whilst  they  compromised  with  the  great  end 
of  all  political  life.  Under  their  system  Piedmont  might 
have  gone  on  for  years  increasing  in  ignoble  prosperity,  dis- 
tinguished from  Belgium  or  Holland  by  a  finer  army  or  a 
nobler  soil. 

Nor  did  the  bare  programme  of  the  revolutionists  offer  a 
more  fortunate  career.  The  long  series  of  disastrous  insur- 
rections into  which  the  unhappy  illusions  of  Mazzini  led  his 
generous  but  credulous  followers,  seems  to  prove  beyond  all 
doubt  the  impossibility  of  really  organising  a  national  insur- 
rection in  a  country  so  thoroughly  shackled  with  the  sanction 
of  every  Government  in  Europe.     Their  appeal  to  the  spirit 


THE  MAKING  OF  ITALY  1 25 

of  their  countrymen,  whilst  it  does  honour  to  the  sincerity 
of  their  own  devotion,  shows  but  too  sadly  how  much  they 
had  mistaken  the  vis  inertiae  of  the  bulk  of  the  people.     And 
if  to  be  alway .  fancying  a  passion  for  national  independence 
in  masses  of  the  country  population,  to  whom  the  very  name 
of  Italy  was  a  word  without  meaning  or  sense,  were  not 
enough  to  condemn  them  as  politicians,  it  was  a  fatal  delu- 
sion to  be  preaching  insurrection  to  a  people  amongst  whom 
the  rich  and  the  noble  held  the  paramount  social  and  political 
influence,  classes  who  by  the  very  conditions  of  their  existence 
must   resent   with   indignation   any   suggestion   or   attempt 
towards  revolutionary  or  social   convulsion.     Had   such  a 
party  succeeded  in  establishing  their  supremacy,  the  future 
of  the  Italian  race  would  have  sunk  more  hopelessly  at  each 
successive  disaster  which  they  had  provoked.     Outcasts  at 
once  from  all  the  conservative  elements  of  their  nation,  and 
hunted  down  by  its  oppressors,  they  would  have  served  only 
to  renew  continual  protests  ever  to  be  extinguished  in  blood. 
Discarding,  it  seems  despising,  that  material  strength  and 
organisation  which  they  did  not,  and  could  not  possess,  and 
attributing  to  the  moral  strength  which  they  had  an  extent 
which  was  wholly  delusive,  they  could  do  little  but  keep  alive 
a  sacred  principle  which  they  were  incapable  of  making 
triumphant.     Each  insurrection  would  have  ended  in  fresh 
physical  suffering  and  deeper  moral  prostration.     Had  Italy 
possessed  no  sons  but  them,  they  might  have  been  now 
wandering  over  Europe  like  the  Poles,  and  showing  us  that 
Italian  nationality  existed  only  in  the  minds  of  the  thoughtful 
and  the  ardent  as  a  tradition  or  an  aspiration. 

It  has  been  the  task  of  Count  Cavour  to  bring  about  the 
fusion  of  these  two  parties,  each  of  which  maintained  an  idea 
which  was  indispensable  to  real  success.  The  party  of  order 
saw  the  necessity  for  regular  and  patient  development  of  the 


126  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

national  resources;  the  party  of  action  the  duty  of  rousing 
the  popular  energy.  From  the  one  he  took  their  notion  of 
the  end,  from  the  other  their  view  of  the  method  of  national 
policy.  With  the  one  he  adopted  as  his  watchword  the  unity 
and  independence  of  Italy,  with  the  other  he  proclaimed  as 
his  policy  the  regular  and  public  reorganisation  of  the  state. 
With  the  one  he  saw  that  no  genuine  progress  was  possible, 
unless  by  accepting  the  conditions  of  the  political  and  social 
system  existing;  with  the  other  he  insisted  that  all  political 
and  material  development  must  be  animated  by  a  leading 
principle,  and  subordinated  to  one  paramount  duty. 

Seen  from  a  distance,  his  Government  presents  itself  to  us 
as  one  series  of  sagacious  yet  aspiring  enterprises.  With 
every  fresh  success  he  has  risen  in  audacity  and  vigour,  until 
we  have  seen  at  last  the  revolutionary  energy  of  the  outlaw 
matched  by  that  of  the  responsible  minister.  He  has  shown, 
indeed,  that  a  great  revolution  can  be  carried  out  without  a 
reckless  use  of  convulsive  measures,  but  not  without  rising 
to  a  true  conception  of  all  the  forces  in  society  which  under- 
lie its  external  forms  and  laws.  He  has  carried  out  the  work 
of  Italian  nationality  by  repudiating,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
desperate  aid  of  mere  insurrection,  but  on  the  other  not  with- 
out boldly  advancing  on  the  path  of  organic  revolution. 

Cavour 

The  career  of  Count  Cavour  exhibits  the  somewhat  un- 
usual case  of  a  politician  who  grows  less  and  not  more  con- 
servative by  experience.  His  progress  has  been  one  from 
unobtrusive  administrative  and  economic  studies  to  the 
conduct  of  astounding  revolutionary  movements.  First  he 
is  the  industrious  writer  on  financial  operations,  then  the 
minister  of  material  and  political  reforms,  lastly  the  leader  of 


CAVOUR  127 

a  nation  in  a  struggle  for  existence.  There  was  little  in  his 
early  life  to  foreshadow  the  formidable  character  in  which 
he  now  appears. 

Almost  the  first  act  which  it  fell  to  his  duty  to  carry  out, 
the  commercial  treaty  with  France,  was  an  emblem  of  his 
whole  subsequent  system.  By  that  treaty,  indeed,  Pied- 
mont surrendered  far  more  advantages  than  she  obtained; 
but  she  obtained  from  it  the  priceless  gain  of  the  foundation 
of  a  French  alliance.  In  the  words  in  which  the  minister 
defended  his  policy  in  Parliament  we  have  indeed  the  key 
of  his  whole  career,  a  reorganisation  of  the  whole  strength  of 
the  country  to  be  combined  with  foreign  alliances  as  the  basis 
of  a  national  war.  "To  this  treaty,"  said  he,  "we  are  moved 
by  considerations  superior  to  any  economical  or  administra- 
tive interest.  A  crisis  may  yet,  and  probably  will  soon  arise 
in  which  Sardinia  might  need,  if  not  the  material,  at  least  the 
moral  support  of  France.  This  treaty  may  not  give  us  all 
the  financial  advantages  which  we  have  a  right  to  expect, 
but  it  will  strengthen  that  precious  union  which  ought  to 
exist  between  the  free  peoples  of  the  west  of  Europe."  It 
was  the  same  idea  to  which  belong  all  those  commercial 
treaties  which  marked  the  year  185 1,  with  Belgium,  England, 
Switzerland,  Greece,  the  Zollverein,  and  Holland.  By  them, 
together  with  the  second  convention  with  France,  an  entire 
revolution  was  introduced  in  the  fiscal  system  of  the  king- 
dom, and  Piedmont  took  her  place  as  a  Free  Trade  state  in 
a  manner  to  which  no  other  Continental  power  could  pretend. 
The  sagacity  of  these  measures  has  indeed  been  amply  proved 
by  an  increased  and  increasing  revenue;  by  the  stimulus 
given  to  production,  and  the  development  of  material 
prosperity. 

But  it  is  to  take  a  very  narrow  view  of  his  policy  to  suppose 
that  it  was  as  a  free-trader,  or  economist,  that  Count  Cavour 


128  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

carried  out  these  measures.  They  are  pohtical  no  less  than 
commercial  measures.  Their  prime  object  was  to  introduce 
Sardinia  as  the  equal  of  the  enlightened  and  progressive 
states  of  Europe,  to  ensure  the  moral  support,  if  not  the 
actual  alliance,  of  France  and  England,  to  raise  the  country 
up  out  of  the  catalogue  of  obscure  or  satellite  kingdoms,  and 
invest  her  in  the  eyes  of  her  citizens  and  of  all  Italians  with 
a  European  dignity  and  importance. 

Nor  was  this  idea  less  conspicuous  in  any  of  those  ad- 
ministrative reforms  under  which  the  whole  organisation  of 
the  country  has  so  marvellously  expanded.  That  system  of 
railways  which  is  now  the  completes!  which  any  Continental 
state  can  show,  if  not  quite  so  thickly  set  as  the  Belgian  or 
the  English,  possesses  a  symmetry  and  a  common  design 
which  show  the  work  of  a  dominant  purpose  directing  their 
whole  extent.  There  is  something  quite  strategic  in  their 
plan,  and  we  see  them  laid  out  as  in  the  array  of  an  army 
with  a  first  and  second  line  of  defence;  a  double  communi- 
cation between  the  strong  stations,  and  a  general  concentra- 
tion of  the  whole.  And  the  providence  and  value  of  this 
work  was  abundantly  manifested  in  the  recent  campaign, 
where  we  saw  Turin  saved  from  invasion,  and  gigantic 
manoeuvres  executed  by  the  sole  agency  of  this  new  engine 
of  war. 

It  is  again  to  the  same  general  policy  that  so  many  of  the 
other  labours  of  that  ministry  belong :  the  postal  conventions 
with  the  other  states  of  Italy,  by  means  of  which  Pied- 
montese  journals  and  information  penetrated  the  Peninsula; 
the  reconstruction  and  reorganisation  of  the  mercantile  and 
naval  ports,  the  reform  of  the  finances,  of  the  banks,  the 
reassessment  of  the  land-tax.  Finally  came  that  by  which 
the  ministerial  policy  was  to  find  its  weapon  —  the  entire 
reorganisation  of  the  army,  and  the  systematic  armament  of 


CAVOUR  129 

the  fortresses  which  formed  the  key  of  the  internal  defence. 
It  was  by  this  series  of  administrative  reforms,  and  the  energy 
and  sagacity  displayed  in  such  repeated  instances  of  sound 
practical  statesmanship,  that  the  great  bulk  of  the  nation 
gradually  came  to  place  its  confidence  in  a  minister  who  had 
so  strikingly  increased  the  prosperity  and  activity  of  the 
country.  But  if  the  policy  of  Count  Cavour  had  rested  there, 
he  might  have  been  the  organ  of  the  Conservative  classes, 
without  ever  becoming  the  chief  of  the  active  energy  of  the 
progressive.  It  was  necessary  to  assume  an  attitude  which 
could  arrest  the  imagination  and  appeal  to  the  heart  of  the 
bulk  of  the  nation,  Italian  as  well  as  Piedmontese.  He 
must  proclaim  a  principle  which  could  really  enlist  that 
smouldering  but  irresistible  force  of  resistance,  and  unite 
in  one  battle-cry  the  unguided  will  of  thousands  of  ardent 
spirits.  To  satisfy  and  to  restrain  the  passionate  hopes  of 
men  to  whom  fear  and  despair  were  unknown,  and  soothe 
the  heaving  agitation  of  overgoaded  populations,  needed 
some  more  powerful  engine  than  financial  arrangements  or 
amended  tariffs.^ 

To  exist,  Piedmont  must  head  the  revolution.  It  was  this 
which  none  of  the  leading  men  of  the  country  seemed  ade- 
quately to  conceive.  It  was  this  which  has  been  the  basis 
of  Cavour's  policy.  Slowly  he  began  to  announce  a  more 
energetic  system. 

The  diplomatic  struggle  with  Austria  in  defence  of  the 
Lombard  exiles  whose  property  had  been  sequestered,  furst 
exhibited  him  in  the  arena  of  European  politics,  and  gave 
its  true  stamp  to  his  policy.  Then  Italians  for  the  first  time 
saw  the  audacity  and  skill  with  which  the  minister  could  meet 
the  high-handed  violence  of  the  great  Empire.     When  after 

*  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  whole  of  these  remarks  applies  to  the 
condition  of  Itay  in  i860  (1908). 


130  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

the  failure  (at  least  outwardly)  of  the  most  powerful  appeals 
and  protests  to  Austria,  the  Sardinian  envoy  was  withdrawn 
from  Vienna,  the  full  significance  of  the  struggle  became 
manifest.  It  was  a  great  step  thus  to  have  met  the  common 
enemy  with  a  defiance,  and  to  have  pronounced  before  the 
public  opinion  of  Europe  a  crushing  indictment,  and  car- 
ried off  the  approval  of  the  Governments  of  England  and 
France. 

But  there  was  an  enemy  at  home  yet  nearer  than  the 
Austrian  whom  it  was  necessary  to  humble  and  defy.  Whilst 
the  Papal  Church  retained  its  prestige  and  organisation,  the 
union  and  independence  of  Italy  were  alike  impossible. 

Rome  yet  possessed  the  strength  to  impede  every  step 
towards  national  greatness,  and  the  strength  of  Rome  lay  in 
the  monastic  orders.  It  is  a  singular  fact  that  during  the 
provisional  regime  in  Tuscany  and  the  Duchies  of  Central 
Italy,  the  feelings  of  the  clergy,  and  with  them  of  the  rural 
populations,  were  seen  to  vary  exactly  in  proportion  to  the 
numbers  and  power  of  the  monastic  bodies.  To  strike  down 
and  shatter  this  priestly  army  was  the  object  achieved  with 
entire  success  by  the  conventual  legislation  by  which  all 
orders  not  engaged  in  preaching,  teaching,  or  healing  were 
suppressed.  By  this  measure  the  Papacy  was  humiliated 
and  its  strength  crippled.  The  rapidity,  firmness,  and  mod- 
eration with  which  this  great  social  change  was  effected 
(unattended  by  any  of  those  evils  which  have  too  often  fol- 
lowed upon  such  an  act),  showed  the  minister  superintending 
without  a  single  failure  a  real  revolution  in  society,  and  con- 
ciliating the  strict  claims  of  law,  property,  and  order  with 
a  scheme  involving  a  most  organic  change  and  kindling 
opposite  passions. 

Neither  the  fury  of  the  Catholic  party  nor  the  excitement 
of  their  extreme  opponents  could  shake  the  Government  from 


CAVOUR  131 

its  policy  of  long-matured  advance.  The  part  which  this 
measure  alone  has  played  in  the  recent  agitation  towards 
annexation  to  Sardinia  is  very  remarkable.  Both  sides  feel 
its  significance,  and  the  resolution  and  boldness  displayed  in 
it  by  the  ministry  as  much  added  to  their  strength  as  the 
senile  anathemas  of  the  Vatican  exposed  and  degraded  the 
Catholic  party. 

The  material  strength  of  the  country  having  been  thus 
raised  to  the  highest  efficiency,  and  the  domestic  enemies 
effectually  subdued,  Count  Cavour  was  prepared  to  enter 
upon  that  branch  of  his  policy  which  involved  the  active 
co-operation  of  the  European  Powers.  The  war  against 
Russia  offered  the  means,  and  even  made  necessary  immedi- 
ate action.  The  opportunity  was  given  of  at  once  entering 
into  the  circle  of  the  European  states,  whilst  the  late  outbreak 
at  Milan,  and  the  evident  excitement  of  the  republican  party, 
proved  the  danger  of  a  policy  of  inaction.  Count  Cavour 
accordingly  offered  to  the  allies  the  vigorous  co-operation  of 
the  Sardinian  state,  and  despatched  a  force  which  nearly 
equalled  and  at  one  time  exceeded  that  of  the  British  army. 
By  this  enterprise  the  ambition  and  self-reliance  of  the  army 
were  awakened,  great  impulse  was  given  to  its  organisation 
and  strength,  the  disaster  of  Novara  was  blotted  out,  and  the 
credit  of  Piedmont  again  placed  beyond  a  rival  in  Italy. 

It  was  by  its  indirect  rather  than  by  its  direct  consequences 
that  this  measure  must  be  judged.  The  alliance  with  Eng- 
land and  France,  by  which  the  Sardinian  territories  were 
actually  guaranteed  during  the  war,  and  which  promised 
for  many  years  the  closest  relations,  at  once  raised  the  little 
kingdom  into  a  European  Power.  The  moral  effect  of  the 
protest,  uttered  at  the  Congress  of  Paris,  formed  a  real  step 
in  the  history  of  Italy ;  nor  was  the  language  of  the  minister 
in  the  Parliament  other  than  was  justified  by  facts:   "From 


132  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

henceforth  the  Italian  question  has  entered  on  the  order  of 
European  questions.  The  cause  of  Italy  has  been  main- 
tained, not  by  demagogues  and  revolutionaries,  but  by  the 
plenipotentiaries  of  France  and  England.  From  the  Con- 
gress it  has  passed  to  the  tribunal  of  public  opinion.  The 
struggle  will  be  long,  and  needs  prudence  and  calmness ;  but 
our  cause  will  triumph." 

Indeed  the  state  papers  which  that  occasion  drew  forth 
before  the  public  attention  of  Europe,  were  such  as  pos- 
sessed no  ordinary  significance.  That  presented  to  the  allied 
Powers  in  April  1856,  by  the  vigour  of  its  attack,  by  its  un- 
answerable logic,  and  still  more  by  the  perfect  moderation 
of  its  tone,  could  not  fail  to  place  the  Italian  question  in  a 
new  light,  and  force  upon  the  most  conservative  minds  in 
Europe  the  necessity  for  acquiescing  in  important  change. 
The  conflict  waged  in  the  field  as  well  as  that  in  the  council 
sank  deeply  into  the  minds  of  the  whole  Italian  race,  the 
former  chiefly  into  that  of  the  people,  the  latter  into  the  con- 
victions of  thinking  men.  And  if  in  the  recent  elevation  of 
Sardinia  to  the  chieftainship  of  the  nation,  we  see  the  influ- 
ence of  the  glory  of  the  Crimean  campaign,  we  see  in  it  no 
less  the  impression  caused  on  the  more  vigorous  of  the  older 
parties  by  the  attitude  which  the  kingdom  had  assumed  in 
the  councils  of  Europe.  This  it  was  that  gave  the  minister 
the  support  of  the  republican  and  purely  revolutionary  chiefs. 
Now  they  saw  opening  to  them  a  real  prospect  of  achieving 
by  some  not  distant  effort  the  entire  emancipation  of  the 
country  with  the  sanction  and  even  the  co-operation  of  some 
of  the  European  Powers.  Then  they  began  to  see  the  real 
drift  of  a  policy  which  looked  forward  to  national  inde- 
pendence, not  by  setting  up  Piedmont  as  a  fortunate  model 
for  imitation  or  an  example  of  prudent  resignation,  but  by 
training  her  whole  energies  for  the  hour  of  national  struggle, 


CAVOHR  133 

and  preparing  the  way  for  success  by  a  hearty  co-opera- 
tion of  parties  and  long-sighted  combination  of  European 
policy. 

With  regard  to  this  participation  of  Piedmont  in  the 
Crimean  War  very  opposite  judgments  have  been  formed. 
It  may  be  said  with  much  force  that  to  declare  war  with  a 
friendly  Power  which  menaced  no  possible  right  or  interest 
of  the  state,  to  burden  the  struggling  resources  of  the  coun- 
try with  a  new  and  indefinite  weight,  to  have  rushed  unpro- 
voked into  the  midst  of  a  gigantic  struggle;  in  a  word,  to 
have  undertaken  a  distant  v/ar  for  the  sole  purpose  of  de- 
riving therefrom  glory  and  alliances,  was  an  act  of  very 
doubtful  prudence,  and  of  hardly  doubtful  morality. 

Right  or  wrong,  the  war  resulted  almost  as  a  necessity  from 
the  part  which  Sardinia  had  undertaken.  To  maintain  her 
very  existence  and  tranquillity  she  was  forced  to  show  her- 
self prepared  for  a  speedy  struggle  with  the  Austrian  —  to 
enter  upon  that  struggle  with  a  chance  of  success  she  needed 
at  least  the  moral  support  of  the  Western  Powers  —  and  that 
support  she  could  not  hope  to  obtain  unless  by  boldly  identi- 
fying herself  with  their  foreign  European  policy.  The  Lom- 
bard campaign  was  only  possible  after  the  Congress  of  Paris, 
and  admission  to  the  Congress  would  have  been  impossible 
had  it  not  been  for  the  victory  on  the  Tchernaia.  It  may  be 
that  the  task  of  national  regeneration  is  one  which  after  all 
the  sword  is  not  competent  to  effect ;  but  so  far  as  force  or 
policy  could  effect  it,  the  work  has  been  most  thoroughly 
successful,  and  if  the  Crimean  expedition  was  one  which  by 
itself  has  no  adequate  justification  of  right,  it  has  been  at 
least  gilded  over  by  amazing  results,  and  received  a  certain 
consecration  from  the  cause  which  it  has  so  incalculably 
served. 

The  work  hitherto  had  been  one  only  of  preparation  for 


134  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

the  struggle.  The  time  was  come  for  the  actual  effort.  The 
aid  of  France  was  sought,  and  obtained.  Nothing  could  be 
a  greater  mistake  than  to  regard  the  interference  of  France 
as  the  result  of  an  individual  impulse  of  the  Emperor,  or  any 
special  manoeuvre  of  the  minister.  It  is  bound  up  with  the 
whole  system  of  Count  Cavour's  policy,  of  which  it  forms  the 
crown.  By  it  that  policy  must  stand  or  fall.  With  reference 
to  that  his  public  acts  must  be  explained  and  judged.  Immi- 
nent as  that  French  intervention  was  in  1848,  with  the  whole  , 
course  of  events  leading  up  to  it  over  a  period  of  ten  years, 
popular  as  the  object  of  the  war  was  in  France,  it  must  be 
looked  on  even  more  as  the  issue  of  the  situation  of  affairs 
in  Europe  than  of  any  individual  will,  however  powerful  and 
apparently  capricious,  and  as  having  justified  the  sagacity  of 
Lord  Palmerston,  who  wrote  in  November  1848,  "The  glory 
of  delivering  Italy  to  the  Alps  from  the  Austrian  yoke  will 
compensate,  in  the  eyes  of  the  French  people,  many  sacri- 
fices and  great  efforts.  The  opportunity  for  invoking  French 
intervention  in  Italy  will  not  long  be  wanting.  The  Lom- 
bards would  be  ready  to  furnish  it  directly  they  knew  that 
the  Government  and  people  of  France  were  disposed  to 
answer  the  call.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  imagine  that  an 
Austrian  army  could  resist  a  numerous  and  powerful  French 
army,  seconded  and  supported  by  a  general  rising  of  the 
Italians."  In  any  case,  such  an  alliance  was  the  consum- 
mation of  the  policy  of  Count  Cavour.  Under  his  hands 
Piedmont  had  undertaken  to  solve  the  national  difficulty. 
She  was,  indeed,  impelled  to  it  by  a  fatal  necessity  to  preserve 
at  once  her  independence,  her  tranquillity,  and  her  throne. 
Had  not,  indeed,  the  upper  classes  under  their  noble  chief 
placed  themselves  at  the  head  of  the  national  movement, 
their  power  would  in  a  few  years  have  been  wrenched  from 
them  by  the  party  of  the  revolution  to  renew  the  policy  and 


■*h 


CAVOUR  135 

disaster  of  No  vara.  What,  then,  were  the  means  by  which 
the  end  was  to  be  obtained? 

The  last  campaign  has  proved  how  utterly  powerless 
would  have  been  the  most  desperate  efforts  of  Sardinia  alone 
against  the  entire  force  of  Austria.  Nor  were  we  to  add  to 
these  efforts,  as  the  revolutionary  party  insist,  the  insurrec- 
tion throughout  Italy;  it  is  not  easy  to  assert  that  it  would 
have  improved  the  chances  of  national  success.  This  could 
not  escape  the  eye  of  the  man  who  had  evoked  and  weighed 
the  resources  of  his  country,  whilst  he  repudiates,  and  per- 
haps undervalues,  the  power  of  insurrection.  He  was  forced 
then  to  look  for  some  external  assistance ;  nor  is  it  conceiv- 
able that  he  could  have  persisted  in  a  long  course  of  provoca- 
tion and  defiance  of  the  common  enemy  with  the  ultimate 
intention  of  commencing  war  with  no  forces  but  the  compact 
army  of  the  king,  and  the  desultory  fury  of  unarmed  popula- 
tions. Such  an  idea  is  as  much  contradicted  by  the  character 
of  the  man,  as  by  the  whole  history  of  his  acts.  Some  ex- 
ternal aid  was  indispensable.  It  presented  itself  only  in  two 
forms. 

Italy  might  meet  Austria  either  with  the  assistance  of  one 
or  more  of  the  Western  Powers,  or  might  wait  until  she  was 
a  prey  to  the  mortal  throes  of  revolution  within.  Even  now, 
as  we  witness  the  slow  dissolution  of  that  tenacious  power 
struggling  so  long  after  a  death-wound,  we  cannot  fail  to  see 
that  to  have  waited  for  that  crisis  might  have  been  to  wait 
until  safety,  honour,  and  self-respect  had  been  lost  at  home. 
Each  fresh  act  of  provocation  thrust  Sardinia  nearer  to  the 
inevitable  conflict,  and  necessitated  a  still  bolder  act  to  con- 
firm and  extend  the  prestige  of  the  last.  Sardinia  was  forced 
by  an  irresistible  power  to  advance  incessantly  upon  a  path 
where  success  was  only  possible  at  the  price  of  invoking  the 
assistance  of  the  foreigner.     To  have  relied,  as  the  revolu- 


136  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

tionary  party  insist,  upon  the  unaided  strength  of  Italy, 
means  simply  to  have  submitted  to  an  internal  revolution  as 
a  preparation,  and  to  have  established  a  democratic  republic 
upon  the  ruins  of  all  those  conservative  elements  of  the  coun- 
try, and  of  the  consolidation  of  the  social  system,  out  of  which 
alone,  as  we  conceive,  permanent  success  was  possible. 
Italia  fard  da  se  was  the  watchword  of  Mazzini  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  war.  But  the  very  weapon  with  which,  as  he  con- 
ceives, she  ought  to  fight  —  the  insurrection  after  the  model 
of  the  year  1793  —  involves  the  previous  suppression  of  the 
whole  force  of  the  upper  classes,  to  whom  such  a  weapon 
is  abhorrent  and  self-destructive. 

To  the  Western  Powers,  then,  or  more  distinctly  to  France, 
Count  Cavour  directed  his  hopes.  Hazardous  as  the  cast 
was,  it  cannot  be  proved  to  have  been  desperate.  All  those 
advantages  which  it  seemed  to  offer  have  been  obtained  from 
it ;  and  very  few  of  the  evils  which  were  foretold  have  come 
to  pass.  He  cannot  be  said  to  have  conjured  a  spirit  which 
he  was  unable  to  control  or  to  resist ;  nor  can  any  reasonable 
mind  assert  that  the  loss  of  Nice  counterbalances  the  crea- 
tion of  Italy.  It  may  be  that  the  recent  war  has  not  ade- 
quately solved  the  difhculty.  The  assistance  of  France  may 
have  produced  a  moral  injury  to  the  future  of  Italy.  But 
all  such  evils  were  involved  in  any  possible  course  of  active 
effort.  No  conceivable  policy,  in  such  a  case,  could  have 
been  without  its  own  inherent  defect.  It  may  be  that  the 
European  statesman,  or  even  the  Italian  patriot,  might  de- 
plore the  intervention  of  France ;  but  it  would  be  preposter- 
ous to  condemn  a  great  practical  politician  from  seizing  the 
only  available  engine  of  acting  on  the  immediate  destinies 
of  his  country. 

The  assistance  of  the  foreigner  having  been  decided  upon, 
the  task  before  Count  Cavour  was  to  direct  the  Italian  revo- 


CAVOUR  137 

lution  by  means  of  conservative  authorities,  and  with  the 
least  possible  risk  of  political  or  social  convulsion,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  call  out  the  whole  warlike  energy  of  the 
nation.  It  must  be  admitted  that  he  succeeded  far  better 
in  the  former  than  in  the  latter  portion  of  his  duty.  The 
liberated  populations  exhibited  indeed  far  more  sagacity 
than  energy,  and  finally  achieved  their  freedom  by  a  fortu- 
nate deficiency  of  vehemence  and  excitement.  It  cannot  be 
doubted  that  an  almost  suspicious  reliance  was  placed  upon 
order  and  diplomacy.  The  fact  is  that  the  whole  conduct 
of  the  movement  had  been  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  recog- 
nised heads  of  the  social  system,  and  was  left  to  the  upper 
classes  to  direct  by  skill  without  any  admixture  of  revolu- 
tionary convulsion.  This  was  especially  obvious  in  Tuscany 
(which  was  but  a  type  of  the  other  provisional  Governments), 
where  the  entire  guidance  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  real 
aristocracy  of  birth  and  wealth,  of  men  possessing  the  lead- 
ing territorial  and  social  influence  in  the  country,  full  of 
the  conservative  instincts  of  an  educated  and  historic  order, 
and  united  by  long  study,  and  an  almost  pedantic  trust  in 
the  machinery  of  orderly  and  systematic  government. 

Such  as  the  Tuscan  rulers  were,  such  were  the  Parmesan, 
the  Modenese,  and  the  Bolognese,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree ; 
and  the  whole  of  these  governments  were  created  under  the 
influence,  and  in  most  cases  by  the  direct  act,  of  Count 
Cavour,  and  were  even  after  his  fall  inspired  mainly  by  his 
counsels,  and  held  together  by  the  National  Society  which 
was  the  organ  and  promoter  of  his  peculiar  views  and  policy. 
The  exigencies  of  the  situation  had  all  been  foreseen  and 
provided  for  by  the  minister,  and  he  relied  for  the  success  of 
the  revolution  to  be  accomplished  under  the  shield  of  France 
exclusively  to  the  strength,  authority,  and  ability  of  the  con- 
servative and  wealthy  classes,  assisted  by  all  the  educated 


138  XATI0N.\1   -\XD   SOCLVL  PROBLEMS 

intelligence  which  they  could  command.  It  is  true  that  but 
for  a  bolder  and  less  far-sighted  effort,  the  population  of 
Central  Italy  might  have  sunk  from  want  of  military  energ\- 
and  enthusiasm;  but  it  is  not  the  less  true  that  tJie  whole 
attitude,  sobriety,  and  pertinacity  of  the  resistance  they  made 
to  the  Peace  of  Villafranca  was  directlv  due  to  the  sasacitv 
of  the  statesman  who  had  placed  the  direction  of  a  revolu- 
tion in  the  hands  of  men  who  belonged  to  the  party  of  order 
by  instinct,  position,  and  education. 

More  recent  events  have  shown  Count  Cavour  assuming 
a  bolder  attitude,  and  earning  almost  the  name  of  a  revolu- 
tionan-  leader.  The  connivance  in  the  attempt  of  Garibaldi, 
and  the  invasion  and  annexation  of  the  Papal  and  Neapolitan 
territories,  belong  wholly  to  the  poHcy  of  a  man  who  had 
risen  to  a  fuU  sense  of  a  critical  situation.  The  manner  in 
which  he  has  used,  aided,  and  then  controlled  Garibaldi; 
the  skill  with  which  the  republican  energ}-  has  been  let  loose, 
to  be  at  the  very  moment  of  destruction  reined  in  and  paci- 
fied; the  audacity  with  which  a  starthng  onslaught  was 
made  upon  the  Head  of  the  National  Church,  and  a  friendly 
monarch  attacked  and  besieged,  without  on  the  one  hand 
calling  forth  revolutionary  passions,  or  on  the  other  the  hos- 
tility of  jealous  foreign  Powers,  is  undoubtedly  a  proof  of 
poUtical  aptitude,  such  as  makes  the  turning-point  in  the 
destinies  of  a  nation.  In  these  later  enterprises  the  true 
force  of  the  statesman's  capacity  is  seen,  for  they  exhibit  him 
as  the  chief  of  a  revolution  of  which  he  has  hitherto  appeared 
mainly  as  the  controller. 

Schemes  such  as  these  belong  to  those  exceptional  crises 
in  which  a  statesman  must  rise  above  the  rules  of  prudence, 
legality,  and  moderation,  or  be  irretrievably  lost,  and  act,  if 
he  acts  at  all.  in  a  full  consciousness  that  the  safety  of  the 
people  is  above  all  law.     It  is  by  such  acts  throughout  his- 


CAVOUR  139 

tory  that  the  existence  of  nations  has  been  preserved  by  men 
who  have  broken  through  at  once  all  the  habits,  traditions, 
and  laws  of  society,  under  the  overwhelming  duty  of  the 
salvation  of  the  nation.  Men  will  always  be  found  to  object 
to  Cromwell  violations  of  the  constitution;  to  Danton  sup- 
pression of  law ;  to  William  the  Silent  duplicity  and  intrigue : 
but  poHticians  must  be  judged  by  their  power  of  commanding 
the  crisis  in  which  they  are  placed,  and  the  average  of  their 
good  and  evil  must  be  struck  by  the  practical  necessities  of 
their  task.  On  any  politician  who  dares  to  violate  constitu- 
tions, laws,  or  treaties,  the  heaviest  responsibility  must  weigh, 
to  be  removed  alone  by  the  verdict  of  history  and  the  con- 
scientious sanction  of  public  opinion. 

Beneath  the  logic  of  pedants  and  fanatics,  the  pubHc  in- 
stinct feels  that  the  law  of  nations  in  no  true  sense  could 
apply  between  the  provincial  states  of  Italy,  or  govern  rela- 
tions which  rest  on  a  condition  of  virtual  revolution  and  war. 
WTien  the  Sardinian  armies  invaded  the  ISIarches  and  Umbria 
they  invaded  the  states  of  a  power  with  whom  they  had  long 
been  waging  a  deadly  but  informal  war.  When  they  hunted 
the  Neapolitan  pretender  to  his  last  retreat,  they  were  only 
crushing  an  outcast  tyrant  and  driving  forth  an  incendiary 
partisan.  Legal  pedantry  and  hj^ocritical  formalism  apart, 
it  is  true  that  Count  Cavour  has  the  right  to  say,  "We  are 
Italy!  we  act  in  her  name."  The  judgment  of  free  nations 
has  welcomed  that  which  does  indeed  bear  the  outward  form 
of  the  triumph  of  might  over  right,  and  the  hopes  of  order 
and  national  independence  have  been  raised  high  by  these 
acts  of  \'iolent  invasion.  Yet  not  the  less  must  we  feel  ad- 
miration for  the  sagacity  and  courage  of  a  policy  which  so 
far  transcends  the  regions  in  which  ordinary  statesmen 
dwell,  and  belongs  to  the  extraordinary  efforts  of  decisive 
emergencies. 


V 


140  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

Count  Cavour  is  a  politician  of  that  high  order  which  unites 
the  most  opposite  quahties,  and  resumes  in  himself  the  vari- 
ous forces  of  an  era.  He  embodies  the  cause  of  monarchy, 
order,  and  constitution,  whilst  working  out  a  revolution  and 
founding  a  new  nation.  At  once  the  sagacious  economist, 
the  consummate  minister,  and  the  dictator  of  a  crisis,  he  is 
by  turns  laborious  and  energetic,  subtle  and  impetuous,  in- 
genious and  audacious,  practical  and  profound.  Now  it  is  his 
task  to  calm  the  agitation  of  a  nation,  then  to  call  it  to  a 
struggle  for  life;  now  he  imposes  on  it  his  own  strong  will, 
then  addresses  and  instructs  its  judgment ;  sometimes  con- 
vincing in  the  Parliament,  sometimes  stirring  the  public 
heart,  sometimes  guiding  unseen  the  machinery  of  diplomacy 
and  parties. 

He  has  the  true  vein  of  a  great  statesman.  His  whole 
action  is  practical,  relative,  and  instinctive.  His  poHcy  rests 
upon  principle ;  yet  he  is  never  the  slave  of  his  theories.  He 
can  rise  to  the  grandeur  of  ideas,  yet  is  never  carried  away 
by  illusions.  An  inflexible  purpose  may  bow  before  necessity 
and  storms ;  and  out  of  every  emergency  still  grasp  the  true 
clue  upwards.  No  modern  politician  insists  so  firmly  upon 
theory;  none  so  consistently  develops  it  into  action;  and 
none  is  so  little  cramped  by  it  in  practice.  His  love  of  order 
never  stiffens  into  oppression;  legality  with  him  stops  short 
of  formalism;  his  mastery  of  logic  is  forgotten  when  logic 
has  ceased  to  be  of  use.  With  a  turn  for  diplomacy  worthy 
of  Talleyrand,  his  art  is  restrained  to  its  due  place  and  func- 
tion. A  master  of  party  politics,  he  is  never  greater  than 
when  he  has  ceased  to  be  a  parliamentary  leader.  Con- 
servative by  nature,  he  knows  the  value  of  institutions;  in 
the  hour  of  crisis  he  sees  in  them  nothing  but  forms.  He  has 
gauged  popular  emotion ;  he  neither  mistakes  its  strength  nor 
forgets  its  fickleness. 


CAVOUR  141 

With  an  appetite  for  power  like  Richelieu,  he  loves  to  rest 
upon  public  opinion ;  and  being  a  real  dictator,  he  acts  in  the 
spirit  of  a  responsible  minister.  With  a  native  insight  into 
character,  there  are  no  men  and  no  parties  whom  he  hesi- 
tates to  use ;  fanaticism  or  industry,  authority  or  enthusiasm, 
craft  or  heroism,  are  instruments  which  he  employs  and  con- 
trols. He  can  lay  deep  plans  without  being  tortuous;  be 
politic  without  falsehood;  and  strike  an  unexpected  blow 
without  treachery.  In  the  state  he  grasps  a  concentration 
of  power,  which  he  wields  without  selfishness,  and  which  is 
yielded  without  jealousy.  In  Parliament  he  can  solicit  the 
support  of  a  majority  without  stooping  to  party  triumphs. 
In  the  tribune  he  seeks  to  convince,  not  to  confute ;  to  win 
confidence,  not  votes.  He  never  perorates,  but  argues; 
generally  careless  in  language,  always  keen  in  logic,  some- 
times rising  into  moving  eloquence,  sometimes  overcoming 
by  inherent  energy. 

In  the  Cabinet  he  is  master  of  diplomatic  fence,  yet  his    1 
logic  is  ever  drawn  from  public  right  and  plain  principle.   / 
The  exquisite  skill  with  which  he  crushes  his  opponent's  case 
is  only  equalled  by  the  substantial  justice  of  his  own  cause.     , 
His  state-papers  would  be  models  of  art  if  they  were  not     I 
standards  of  historic  fact.     With  all  his  instinctive  love  of 
order  and  law,  he  sees  that  these  are  not  ends  but  means.     In 
a  crisis  he  can  rise  superior  to  any  notion  but  that  of  public 
safety  and  duty.     To  habitual  industry  in  preparation  he 
unites  an  impetuous  rapidity  of  execution;    and  however 
careful  in  husbanding  his  resources,  he  is  prodigal  of  them  in 
action.     His  most  daring  schemes  are  all  within  the  limits 
of  reasonable  safety ;  if  he  oversteps  legality,  he  remains  true 
to  right.     In  a  word,  he  is  in  our  day  the  single  example  of 
a  ruler  who  governs  by  native  superiority  and  that  willing 
homage  which  ennobles  the  giver  and  the  receiver.     He  shows 


142  NATIONAL   AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

US  how  power  can  be  gathered  into  one  hand,  yet  be  but  the 
expression  of  national  will.  Nor  less  is  he  an  instance  of  a 
politician  who  conserves  whilst  he  changes;  who  conciliates 
order  and  movement,  tradition  and  expansion,  the  past  and 
the  present ;  who  innovates  without  convulsion,  and  modifies 
without  destruction.  Thus  he  is  to  us  the  type  of  the  real 
popular  dictator,  and  the  statesman  of  true  conservative 
progress. 

Garibaldi 

Such  are  the  characteristics  of  Count  Cavour,  and  they  are 
those  essentially  of  the  statesman.  But  they  represent  but- 
one  element  of  the  Italian  movement  alone.  The  sagacity, 
self-restraint,  and  perseverance  which  have  marked  it  are 
amply  exhibited  in  him,  but  for  all  that  has  given  it  life, 
poetry,  and  moral  grandeur,  we  must  find  a  very  different 
representative.  The  virtues,  aspirations,  and  powers  which 
we  attribute  to  Garibaldi  belong  not  either  to  the  minister 
himself,  nor  to  the  classes  of  whom  he  is  the  chief.  There 
exists  beneath  the  surface  an  intensely  popular  element  in 
this  Italian  revolution,  showing  in  reality  nearly  all  the 
features  which  have  distinguished  the  effervescence  of  new 
ideas  in  the  mind  of  the  whole  people,  and  recalling  in  the 
strength  of  its  enthusiasm,  in  the  electric  contagion  of  its 
ideas,  and  in  its  influence  on  the  moral  sentiments,  the  spirit 
which  can  be  seen  to  move  through  nations  in  great  crises 
of  their  history. 

We  can  thus  best  understand  the  heaving  and  agitation  of 
the  mass  of  the  people,  a  new  idea  sweeping  over  them  like 
an  epidemic,  kindling  in  the  hearts  of  man  and  woman  a 
fanatical  enthusiasm,  moving  man  to  man  and  class  to  class, 
elevating  debased  populations  into  momentary  impulses  of 


GARIBALDI  I43 

dignity  and  virtue,  and  inspiring  the  finer  tempers  with  un- 
wonted fires  of  self-sacrifice  and  daring.  Thus  it  was  that 
in  silent  cities  the  people  has  sprung  forth  as  under  some 
sudden  frenzy,  that  armies  have  laid  down  their  arms  at  the 
magical  influence  of  a  name  or  a  voice,  that  men  of  wealth, 
position,  and  refinement  have  hastened  to  stand  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  the  peasant  on  bloody  battlefields  or  more 
deadly  camps,  and  have  given  up  every  earthly  interest,  and 
even  the  convictions  of  their  whole  lives,  in  defence  of  a 
sacred  cause.  We  are  far  too  apt  in  presence  of  the  dis- 
cipline which  has  been  submitted  to,  and  of  the  manifest 
inferiority  of  the  Southern  population,  to  underrate  the  ex- 
tent as  well  as  the  intensity  of  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people 
of  the  North.  The  immense  depopulation  of  Venetia,  the 
100,000  men  who  since  the  beginning  of  the  war  have  volun- 
teered into  the  different  armies,  the  sacrifices  borne,  and  the 
heroism  shown  by  whole  classes  of  men,  and  the  resolution 
and  patriotism  of  the  bulk  of  the  people  of  the  North,  cannot 
be  effaced  by  any  tales  of  failure  and  indifference  in  detail, 
or  the  worthlessness  of  the  demoralised  cities  or  barbarous 
peasantry  of  the  South. 

It  is  the  army  of  Garibaldi,  and  their  leader  himself,  who 
most  worthily  represents  all  this  element  of  the  movement. 
With  all  their  dexterity  and  experience  the  supporters  of  the 
statesman  do  not  adequately  embody  the  vitality  and  eleva- 
tion of  the  popular  instinct.  The  heroic  soldier  and  his  men 
belong  not  to  the  men  who  can  guide  and  administer  a  state, 
but  they  are  of  those  who  fought  with  Manin  the  desperate 
defence  of  Venice,  and  maintained  the  honour  of  their  capital 
against  the  treacherous  insolence  of  France,  —  of  men  who, 
like  the  Bandiera,  Bassi,  or  Ciceroacchio,  have  been  mur- 
dered in  cold  blood,  who  have  spent  their  lives  in  prison  and 
exile,  and  lived  a  long  martyrdom  for  their  cause.    Without 


J^44  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

the  spirit  which  sustained  these  men  in  the  dungeon  or  on 
the  scaffold,  it  would  have  been  impossible  that  the  sacred 
tradition  could  have  kept  its  purity  and  strength.  These  are 
the  men,  and  the  party  to  which  they  belonged,  who  have 
taught  the  youth  of  Italy  to  feel  the  holiness  of  their  cause, 
who  have  clothed  it  with  an  irradiating  splendour,  and  re- 
quired from  its  supporters  a  devotion  and  a  moral  elevation 
unsurpassed.  To  them  it  is  due  that  the  expulsion  of  the 
stranger  means  a  real  national  regeneration,  and  that  the 
future  of  Italy  is  made  to  rest  upon  the  individual  worth  of 
the  citizens.  They  are  the  men  who  first  saw  and  preached 
the  duty  of  absolute  unity,  of  the  consolidation  of  states,  and 
the  fraternity  of  classes  and  orders,  and  who  upheld  the 
singleness  and  directness  of  purpose  to  the  one  great  end. 
To  them  is  due  chiefly  that  which  gives  moral  dignity  to  the 
Italian  people,  and  but  for  them  the  sagacity  or  energy  of 
the  statesmen  would  have  dealt  only  with  untutored  masses 
and  a  lifeless,  passionless  multitude. 

It  is  quite  consistent  with  this  view  to  disbelieve  most 
strongly  in  the  capacity  of  such  men  for  government  or 
direction.  With  the  most  emphatic  conviction  of  the  utter 
hopelessness  of  any  revolution  attempted  under  the  control 
of  such  men,  it  is  impossible  to  refuse  to  the  revolutionary 
parties,  whether  under  the  name  of  Republican  or  National, 
Mazzinist  or  Garibaldian,  the  credit  of  having  set  in  motion 
an  action  of  which  others  were  the  more  fortunate  directors. 
Mazzini,  Garibaldi,  Guerrazzi,  or  Bertani  have  abundantly 
manifested,  on  one  occasion  after  another,  their  incapacity 
for  civil  organisation  and  rule,  and  the  public  instinct  is 
quite  justified  in  looking  upon  their  ascendancy  with  uncon- 
querable aversion.  But  as  agitators  their  influence  has  been 
indispensable.  It  is  true  that  in  1848  they  led  the  na- 
tional cause  to  ruin,  but  it  is  equally  clear  that  their  prin- 


GARIBALDI  1 45 

ciples  prepared  it  for  triumph  in  i860.  More  and  more  we 
are  forced  to  see  how  powerfully  the  abortive  struggle  of 
1848  acted  upon  the  national  mind,  and  led  up  to  the  success 
we  have  lately  witnessed.  The  Lombard  and  Venetian  in- 
surrections, the  popular  votes  of  annexation  in  the  Duchies, 
the  heroism  of  the  defence  of  Rome,  had  educated  the  masses 
with  a  sense  of  their  duty  and  an  instinct  towards  union. 

The  effort  of  1848  was  crushed  by  force,  but  not  the  less 
was  it  a  moral  triumph.     It  awakened  the  national  con- 
science, and  penetrated  the  depressed  multitude.     It  planted 
the  standard  of  the  nation,  and  taught  the  creed  of  unity 
and  the  religion  of  patriotism.     The  task  of  the  statesmen 
of  Piedmont  was  but  to  moderate,  guide,  and  organise  the 
irrepressible  spirit  of  freedom,  which  was  the  outgrowth  of 
the  rising  of  1848.     More  and  more  do  we  see  in  i860,  under 
happier  and  wiser  guidance,  the  noble  enthusiasm  and  aspira- 
tions of  1848.     But  that  effort  was  made  notoriously  under 
the  auspices  and  direction  of  the  Republicans.     If  we  meas- 
ure out  to  them  our  condemnation  of  the  unwisdom  which 
brought  them  to  ruin,  we  should  no  less  give  them  credit  for 
the  spirit  which  at  least  they  succeeded  in  inspiring.     With 
no  stain  upon  its  honour,  with  no  possible  charge  against  it 
but  that  of  misfortune  and  misconception,  the  effort  of  1848 
cannot  be  stigmatised  as  the  work  of  incendiaries  or  dema- 
gogues.    The  great  agitator  to  whom  that  movement  owes 
at  once  its  energy  and  its  unsuccess  may  indeed  have  been  the 
victim  of  desperate  illusions,  but  wilful  ignorance  only  can 
charge  him  with  baseness,  or  downright  malice  only  repre- 
sent him  as  a  sanguinary  fanatic.     Whatever  faults  may  have 
been  committed  by  the  Republican  Governments  in  Italy 
during  1848,  no  single  charge  of  violence  or  selfishness  has 
ever  been  established  against  them.     And  those  who  have 
really  had  any  knowledge  of  these  leaders  know  them  to 


; 


146  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

possess  a  singleness  of  purpose,  a  strength  of  principle,  and 
a  touching  love  of  their  country  and  their  countrymen,  which 
surpasses  in  depth  and  purity  anything  that  their  rivals  or 
their  maligners  can  show. 

Whatever  may  be  the  judgment  passed  upon  this  party 
and  the  true  character  of  its  members,  certain  it  is  that 
Garibaldi  himself  is  its  truest  and  fullest  representative.  It 
is  mere  self-deception  to  deny  that  he  really  belongs  to  that 
body  with  whom  his  whole  life  has  been  passed,  and  all  his 
ideas  derived.  It  is  much  the  fashion  to  revile  all  the  revo- 
lutionary leaders  amongst  men,  who  forget  that  they  thereby 
are  discrediting  the  whole  previous  history  of  their  favourite 
hero,  and  must  wilfully  distort  the  plainest  evidence  of  his 
acts.  In  spite  of  the  most  convincing  proofs  that  he  looks 
on  Mazzini  still  with  friendship  and  trust,  that  all  his  friends 
belong  to  the  old  Republican  parties,  and  all  his  acts  are 
dictated  by  the  old  doctrines  of  insurrection,  the  mere  fact 
of  his  allegiance  to  the  king  is  supposed  to  place  him  in  the 
constitutional  party.  The  fact  is,  that  he  belongs  to  the 
revolutionary  classes,  by  his  whole  nature,  habits,  history, 
and  situation.  He  shares  with  them  his  greatness  of  heart, 
and  draws  from  them  the  false  theories  of  his  political  creed. 
He  amplifies  and  exalts  their  virtues,  but  he  is  not  the  less 
involved  in  their  illusions  and  defects.  The  highest  political 
virtues  are  not  incompatible  with  great  political  incompe- 
tence, and  the  noblest  elevation  of  character  cannot  exclude 
fatal  intellectual  errors. 

It  is  by  his  character  and  not  by  his  intellect  that  Gari- 
baldi holds  his  sway.  It  is  not  by  what  he  directly  does  that 
he  inspires  his  country,  but  by  the  mysterious  influence  of  his 
spirit  and  Ufe.  In  his  story  the  humblest  and  most  ignorant 
can  feel  instinctively  the  worth  of  a  life  unstained  by  one 
selfish  act  or  worldly  motive ;  the  simple  majesty  of  a  man  to 


GARIBALDI  1 47 

whose  eye  his  fellow-men  are  seen  as  man  to  man,  stripped  of 
every  circumstance  of  accident  or  rank,  men  in  whose  soul 
burns  nothing  but  the  fire  which  makes  martyrs  and  heroes. 
It  is  this  power  which  gives  him  a  moral  influence,  which 
neither  king  or  minister  can  approach.  Not  merely  througli 
his  own  country  does  this  influence  extend.  It  spreads 
strangely  through  the  extent  of  civilised  Europe.  We  have 
seen  that  his  name  inspires  a  something  more  than  passing 
sympathy,  and  is  mixed  with  convictions  of  unusual  tenacity. 
Strange  stories  are  told  of  artisans  in  Berlin,  worshipping  in 
the  streets  at  a  shrine  of  St.  Garibaldi,  and  how  his  name 
stirred  the  blood  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine  in  Paris.  To 
the  workmen  of  Glasgow  or  Lyons,  as  much  as  of  Naples  or 
Milan,  he  represents  the  claims  of  their  own  order,  and  from 
Poland  to  Spain,  and  from  Scotland  to  Sicily,  his  course  has 
kindled  the  interest  of  the  democracy  of  Europe. 

He  has,  in  every  fibre,  the  nature  of  the  people,  and  em- 
bodies their  craving  for  a  nobler  future  to  be  won  by  their 
innate  energy.  He  has  their  strength  and  their  weakness; 
their  generous  instincts  and  their  incoherent  doctrines;  and 
his  career,  in  which  both  have  been  signally  exhibited,  has 
awakened  a  motion  of  that  spirit  which  runs  through  each 
state  in  Europe  when  revolution  begins  in  one.  He  feels 
himself  to  belong  not  only  to  Italy,  but  to  the  cause  of  liberty 
through  Europe.  When  he  fights  in  the  Republics  of 
America,  when  he  promises  his  sword  to  Hungary,  or  ex- 
presses his  sympathy  with  the  people  in  England  or  France, 
it  is  because  he  feels  instinctively  the  brotherhood  of  people 
with  people,  and  the  bonds  which  unite  their  future  destinies 
in  one.  Nor  does  he  ever  fail  to  show  that  he  belongs  little 
to  the  actual  poll  deal  systems,  but  to  a  new  and  possible 
order  of  things.  To  him  the  forms,  constitutions,  and  cere- 
monials of  the  day  are  vanity  and  expedients.     He  feels 


148  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

intensely  with  the  heart  of  the  nation,  and  believes  it  will 
rise  into  a  higher  life.  His  perfect  simplicity  of  existence,  his 
contempt  for  dignities,  wealth,  or  power,  his  gentleness  and 
guilelessness  of  heart  belong  indeed  to  a  period  when  public 
life  shall  have  risen  to  a  purer  atmosphere.  That  he  does 
not  understand  it  as  it  is,  that  he  is  ignorant  of  its  tortuous 
mechanism,  is  more  to  his  honour  than  to  his  discredit.  He 
has  left  the  task  for  which  he  has  neither  ability  nor  heart  to 
others.  He  has  gone  back  to  his  own  simple  world.  He 
has  left  behind  him  the  memory  of  an  unsullied  character,  a 
sense  of  duty,  and  a  love  of  truth,  of  which  his  age  can  see  but 
half  the  worth  and  beauty. 

But  whilst  Garibaldi  retains  the  idea  and  babits  of  those 
with  whom  he  has  acted  through  life,  his  fine  character 
enables  him  to  see  and  avoid  the  errors  which  are  peculiar  to 
them.  It  is  this  instinct  which  has  gathered  up  all  his  facul- 
ties with  native  sincerity  round  the  standard  of  Savoy,  and 
has  made  as  the  centre  of  his  creed  loyalty  to  King  Victor 
Emmanuel.  But  this  adherence  to  the  king  is  very  far  from 
being  with  him  a  political  dogma.  It  is  nothing  but  an  in- 
stinctive conception  of  the  necessity  of  the  case  and  the  prac- 
tical sense  of  a  man  of  action.  His  whole  mind,  however,  is 
essentially  republican,  and  there  is  something  preposterous 
in  supposing  that  such  a  man  can  have  any  leaning  towards 
monarchy  as  a  system.  But  he  loves  and  honours  the  soldier 
king  in  his  heart,  and  he  has  idealised  in  him  the  national 
life.  To  this  beautiful  fiction  in  the  mind  of  Garibaldi  is 
perhaps  due  more  than  to  any  other  single  cause  the  wel- 
come which  the  staunchest  Republicans  have  given  to  the  once 
hated  House  of  Savoy. 

He,  the  man  to  whom  peasant  or  prince  appears  each  in 
his  native  worth  as  man,  to  whom  all  the  trappings  of  social 
life  are  contemptible,  and  the  whole  political  system  of  which 


GARIBALDI  149 

the  monarchy  is  but  the  head  is  alien,  to  whom  laws,  tradi- 
tion, or  custom  weigh  nothing  in  the  balance  against  the 
safety  of  the  people  and  the  honour  of  the  nation,  gives  hearty 
allegiance  to  the  king,  in  whom  he  sees  personified  the  des- 
tinies of  his  country,  and  who  is  pointed  out  by  fate  as  its 
natural  dictator  and  chief.  Under  such  an  influence  only 
could  a  nation  in  whom  the  bare  notion  of  monarchy  has 
never  been  fairly  implanted,  and  in  whom  in  this  age  no 
dogmas  of  a  constitutional  aristocracy  are  ever  likely  to  im- 
plant it,  receive  with  enthusiastic  submission  the  monarch 
who  was  indispensable  as  a  centre  of  union  and  of  action.  It 
was  through  this  personal  trust  of  Garibaldi  that,  in  moments 
of  great  danger,  fatal  mistakes  were  avoided,  when  after  the 
armistice  of  Villafranca,  on  the  several  proposed  invasions 
of  the  Papal  territories  or  the  liberation  of  Sicily  and  Naples, 
it  required  the  whole  force  of  an  influence  like  his  to 
restrain  the  fiercest  tempers  and  most  earnest  Republicans 
collected  round  his  standard  from  raising  a  separate  standard, 
and  at  once  commencing  a  career  of  insurrection. 

It  is  this  idea  which  forms  the  principal  link  between  two 
very  opposite  parties  —  in  a  word,  between  the  two  distinct 
schools  of  policy  of  Italy  —  the  constitutional  and  revolu- 
tionary. Nothing  but  a  practical  compromise  in  the  person 
of  a  beloved  leader  could  reconcile  two  parties  who  so  thor- 
oughly misunderstand  and  dislike  each  other.  More  than 
anything  else,  the  example  of  Garibaldi  has  contributed  to 
this  end.  At  his  word  the  most  inveterate  Republicans  have 
consented  to  forego  their  principles,  and  the  high  sense  of 
Cavour  has  not  feared  to  use  their  indispensable  services.  It 
was  the  name  of  Garibaldi  which  finally  decided  the  adhe- 
sion of  the  old  party  throughout  Italy  in  1859,  and  has  re- 
tained them  true  to  their  allegiance  under  the  most  trying 
circumstances.     But  it  is  no  less  clear  that  he  is  heart  and 


150  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

soul  with  them.  The  revolutionary  engine  —  the  levee  en 
masse  —  war  carried  on  by  insurrection  —  trust  alone  in 
native  valour  without  discipline,  organisation,  or  ceremony, 
is  the  only  weapon  which  he  knows.  Diplomatic  measures, 
foreign  assistance,  unless  simply  of  volunteers,  material 
equipment,  and  even  military  science  are  to  him  as  irksome 
and  worthless  as  golden  trappings  or  braided  uniforms.  He 
appeals  to  the  heart  of  the  people  alone,  and  trusts  in  then: 
innate  honour,  energy,  and  heroism. 

It  is  this  which  makes  at  once  his  strength  and  his  weak- 
ness. He  typifies  and  he  evokes  the  life  which  alone  can 
make  a  nation  free  or  strong,  but  he  discards  at  once  all  the 
institutions  by  which  its  strength  is  disciplined  and  directed. 
Himself  and  his  followers  feel  in  them  no  small  measure  of 
that  unquenchable  fire  which  in  1793  preserved  and  created 
France ;  they  will  not  see  how  far  the  condition  of  their  coun- 
try and  their  countrymen  is  removed  from  that  era  of  con- 
vulsive excitement.  Yet  no  little  of  the  religious  zeal  of  those 
French  Republicans  may  be  seen  in  his  army  and  in  him. 
To  him  the  cause  and  its  defenders  are  alike  sacred  and  dear. 
He  can  hardly  understand  that  one  who  has  laboured  and 
suffered  for  Italy  is  unworthy  of  responsibility  and  confi- 
dence. In  his  eyes,  one  who  has  bled  on  the  field  or  pined 
in  a  dungeon  is  a  martyr  to  whom  honour,  influence,  and 
trust  are  due  without  stint  or  hesitation.  He  who  has  en- 
dured the  longest  exile  or  the  heaviest  irons,  or  he  who  is 
most  hateful  to  the  common  enemy,  must  of  all  men  be  most 
capable  and  worthy  to  serve  the  common  country.  He  who 
has  shown  most  his  love  for  her  must  be  best  fitted  to  protect 
her.  He  who  in  the  darkest  hour  uttered  the  most  inspiring 
protest  is  the  truest  guide  in  the  hour  of  relief.  Devotion 
must  imply  capacity,  and  unbounded  faith  is  the  best  proof 
of  a  patriotic  heart. 


GARIBALDI  .15 1 

Such  is  the  spirit  in  which  the  simple-hearted  soldier  clings 
to  his  old  friends  and  their  views,  upholds  Mazzini,  Crispi, 
Mordini,  Mario,  and  Cattaneo,  and  thrusts,  as  rulers,  upon 
the  bewildered  Neapolitans  and  Sicilians  men  who  have 
learnt  their  creed  of  politics  and  system  of  action  in  con- 
spiracies, in  exile,  and  in  dungeons.  "With  him  they  hold 
such  a  place  as  the  "people  of  God"  held  in  the  heart  of 
Cromwell.  Those  who  have  given  all  for  the  cause  are 
sanctified  in  his  eyes.  He  feels  for  them  as  members  of  a 
sort  of  religious  brotherhood,  of  whose  rectitude  and  zeal 
no  doubt  can  be  permitted.  These  are  the  spirits,  as  he 
believes,  the  country  needs.  It  wants  nothing  but  sincerity 
and  vigour.  They  who  love  it  most  serve  it  best.  The  in- 
trigues and  artifices  of  professional  poliiicians  discredit  and 
pervert  the  national  honour.  Compromises,  arrangements, 
and  prevarications  belong  to  their  trade.  The  moral  sense 
is  lowered  by  their  specious  precautions,  and  the  keenness 
of  self-reliance  is  blunted  by  their  diplomacy.  Innate  energy 
and  daring  are  nobler  and  surer  weapons;  the  generous 
hearts  of  the  people  will  do  the  rest.  Brotherly  affection 
and  frank  forbearance  must  soothe  the  antipathies  of  party. 
Unity  of  purpose  and  genuine  zeal  will  preserve  the  public 
security  and  order.  Generosity  will  supply  the  necessaries 
of  life.  Mutual  trust  must  stand  for  discipline ;  the  service 
of  the  country  is  above  any  earthly  reward ;  its  true  leaders 
need  no  formal  commissions  or  solemn  election.  Heroic 
valour  supplies  the  place  of  armies,  and  simple  manhood  and 
its  own  great  heart  will  create  a  nation  worthy  of  freedom. 

But  whilst  believing  this  in  all  sincerity  and  fervour,  he 
is  a  slave  to  no  system,  and  is  not  deluded  by  any  narrow 
dogma.  The  same  love  for  his  country  which  he  perceives 
in  Mazzini,  he  recognises  in  Victor  Emmanuel.  He,  too,  and 
his  soldiers  and  generals,  have  fought  and  laboured  for  the 


152  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

cause;  and  the  very  ministers  and  politicians  and  official 
servants  of  the  state  have,  as  he  sees,  after  their  fashion,  a 
genuine  sense  of  the  common  duty.  Hence,  throwing  aside 
all  logic,  his  fine  instinct  unites  both  parties  in  one.  Full 
of  loyalty  to  the  king,  he  yet  holds  by  all  the  friends  of  his 
old  days;  devoted  to  the  principles  of  Mazzini,  he  submits 
to  the  will  of  the  king  and  his  ministers.  Thus  are  two 
rival  and  hostile  parties  reunited  and  reconciled.  The  Gari- 
baldians  dare  not  repudiate  a  king  whom  their  beloved  chief 
delights  to  honour  and  obey.  The  monarchists  are  forced 
to  be  forbearing  with  a  party  to  whose  head  they  owe  an  in- 
comparable service.  The  one  have  come  to  feel  that  from 
the  ranks  of  the  revolution  has  come  forth  the  noblest  son 
of  Italy;  the  others,  with  their  leader,  can  say,  "We  are 
Republicans  still,  but  our  republic  is  Victor  Emmanuel." 

This  sense  of  duty  to  the  king,  in  whom  he  sees  personified 
the  union  and  the  honour  of  the  country,  at  last,  after  many 
struggles,  induced  him  to  surrender  the  dictatorship  of  the 
South,  in  spite  of  his  deepest  convictions  and  an  intense 
repugnance  to  the  ministry  of  Cavour.  Full  of  the  purest 
ideas  of  the  insurrectionary  party,  still  smarting  under  the 
shameful  sacrifice  of  Nice,  and  cherishing  an  inextinguish- 
able hatred  of  Napoleon,  Garibaldi  was  bent  on  retaining  the 
power  in  South  Italy,  and  rushing  with  blmd  heroism  to  the 
rescue  of  Venice  and  Rome.  It  needed  the  whole  strength 
of  his  unalloyed  trust  in  the  king  to  restrain  him  from  this 
fatal  delirium.  With  many  struggles  he  recovered  his  reason ; 
his  instinctive  good  sense  returned.  Almost  heart-broken  by 
the  sacrifice,  he  gave  up,  in  the  presence  of  an  overpowering 
sense  of  duty,  all  that  he  holds  most  dear  and  most  true.  He 
consented  to  look  on  upon  the  prolonged  slavery  of  his  breth- 
ren ;  to  yield  to  the  will  of  a  degrading  oppressor ;  to  sacrifice 
his  oldest  friends  and  most  trusted  followers.    And  last  trial 


GARIBALDI  1 53 

of  all,  he  consented  to  place  the  work  of  his  own  hands  and 
the  people  he  had  fought  for  into  the  keeping  of  men  to 
whom  he  bears  the  keenest  antipathy,  to  whose  policy  his 
whole  life  is  a  protest,  and  who  have  but  recently  degraded 
the  nation  and  bartered  its  very  principle  of  life.  Such  was 
the  temper  in  which  the  Dictator,  much  loth,  accepted  the 
annexation  and  its  consequences. 

It  needed  some  overpowering  sense  of  duty  to  counter- 
balance his  ingrained  convictions.  Had  he  not  acted  so,  it 
is  plain  that  he  was  going  on  the  road  to  ruin.  Not  only 
must  his  attack  have  been  infallibly  crushed  in  the  field  (even 
it  would  seem  by  the  arms  of  Sardinia  herself),  but  the  inter- 
nal state  of  the  country  would  have  shortly  resulted  in  irre- 
deemable chaos.  It  may  indeed  now  be  assumed  that  the 
Garibaldian  regime  would  have  ended  in  Naples  in  the  most 
complete  dissolution  and  anarchy,  and  almost  the  rupture 
of  society  itself.  It  needs  little  argument  in  the  face  of  in- 
contestable facts.  Not  indeed  that  the  rulers  appointed  were 
in  themselves  incompetent  or  untrustworthy,  but  because 
they  were  wholly  incompatible  with  the  people  whom  they  had 
to  govern.  Full  of  the  notions  of  insurrection  and  revolution, 
they  were  applying  their  own  extreme  and  incoherent  system 
in  a  society  quite  unprepared  for  it,  and  to  circumstances  in 
which  it  was  an  anachronism.  In  a  half-barbarous  and  de- 
based population  it  was  necessary  not  to  inflame,  but  to  calm; 
not  to  impel,  but  to  restrain.  They  needed  the  strong  hand 
of  a  regular  and  orderly  Government,  not  the  exciting  stimu- 
lus of  insurrectionary  committees,  and  the  whole  apparatus 
of  revolutionary  action.  Such  a  population  could  be  con- 
trolled only  by  the  accustomed  weight  of  recognised  Govern- 
ment. The  Dictator  was  full  of  trust  that  they  could  be 
aroused  to  the  due  point  of  insurgent  energy.  But  a  blunder 
so  fatal  as  this  does  not  conclusively  prove  his  incapacity  for 


154  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

civil  government  under  more  favourable  circumstances.  It 
only  shows  that  he  had  thoroughly  mistaken  the  situation 
and  the  real  necessities  of  the  case,  and  was  only  able  to 
shake  himself  free  from  the  notions  and  habits  of  his  whole 
previous  life  by  an  effort  of  the  most  splendid  abnegation, 
and  by  withdrawing  altogether  and  abruptly  from  a  post 
the  duties  of  which  he  profoundly  misconceived. 

The  sacrifice  of  principle  once  made,  the  retirement  to 
Caprera  was  a  necessary  and  subordinate  incident.  Much 
has  been  said  of  this  act  by  men  who  little  understand  his 
character.  It  was  neither  the  result  of  mortification,  or 
impulse,  or  vanity,  much  less  of  a  morose  or  factious  temper. 
With  him  to  retire  to  his  position  as  a  simple  yeoman  was  a 
natural  consequence  of  no  public  task  needing  him.  The 
self-sacrifice  is  seen  in  the  surrender  of  his  principles  and 
friends,  not  in  his  love  of  the  happiness  of  private  life.  Gari- 
baldi, if  not  the  leader  of  a  revolution,  is  nothing.  To  head 
an  army  of  heroes,  to  awaken  the  enthusiasm  of  a  popula- 
tion, to  initiate  a  new  order  of  ideas  and  acts,  is  his  only  duty. 
To  organise,  to  govern,  and  to  compromise,  to  prepare  by 
patient  forethought,  or  devise  by  dexterous  management,  is 
above  or  below  his  power.  He  cannot  make  the  laborious 
official,  or  the  sagacious  minister,  or  the  rigid  disciplinarian. 
His  character  is  too  lofty  for  the  petty  necessities  of  these 
duties.  He  belongs  wholly  to  a  purer  atmosphere.  When 
no  unusual  effort  is  required,  there  is  little  in  which  he  can 
serve  his  country.  He  retires  in  the  calmer  moments  of  or- 
dinary life  to  the  simplicity  of  the  life  of  the  humblest  citizen. 
Yet  natural  and  voluntary  as  his  retirement  has  been,  it  is 
not  the  less  melancholy.  For  a  character  of  such  strength 
the  surrender  of  such  hopes  and  purposes  gives  a  profound 
shock.  Though  feeling  the  necessity  of  the  case,  he  could 
scarcely  comprehend  all  the  reasons  which  made  his  mere 


GARIBALDI  I55 

presence  a  danger.  Yet  his  retirement  to  his  island  is,  per- 
haps, the  most  instructive,  as  it  is  certainly  the  most  hon- 
ourable act  of  his  life.  By  it  his  party  have  learnt  to  yield, 
however  reluctantly,  to  the  true  interests  of  their  country; 
and  the  name  of  an  Italian  has  been  placed  before  the  eyes 
of  Europe  as  the  symbol  of  the  purest  self-devotion,  and  a 
rehgious  sense  of  public  duty. 

Garibaldi  thus  gives  to  the  national  movement  a  character 
which  was  essential,  and  could  come  from  no  other.  The  ' 
creation  of  a  nation  needs  more  than  victories,  treaties,  in- 
stitutions, or  administration.  Success  in  the  field  or  the  coun-  / 
cil  may  furnish  it  with  opportunities.  True  national  life  j 
needs  real  public  regeneration.  It  is  right,  then,  that  Gari-  j 
baldi  should  be  felt  to  be  the  popular  hero.  In  a  prolonged  i 
struggle,  requiring  so  much  from  skill,  circumstances,  and 
foreign  aid,  it  needed  the  contact  of  one  great  heart  to  keep 
alive  the  sense  of  dignity  and  honour.  Whilst  ministers 
were  engaged  in  diplomacy,  intrigue,  or  compromise  (essen- 
tial as  they  too  were),  it  was  well  that  a  hero  should  be  found 
to  speak  of  nothing  but  truth  and  duty.  Italian  nationality 
means  more  than  independence  and  freedom,  or  it  means 
little.  To  show  its  true  destiny,  it  needed  one  splendid  ex- 
ample of  public  duty  without  blemish  or  alloy.  Henceforth 
for  all  Italians  the  memory  of  freedom  is  for  ever  bound  up 
with  the  ideal  of  perfect  social  virtue.  In  years  to  come,  in 
the  strife  of  public  life  they  may  learn  from  him  higher  aims 
and  nobler  acts.  Nor  was  it  less  essential  that  in  a  deadly 
struggle  with  a  foreigner  they  should  be  headed  by  one  who 
knows  the  true  brotherhood  of  nations:  and  that  a  war  of 
hatred  should  be  tempered  by  one  who  has  a  woman's  gentle- 
ness and  mercy.  Thus  the  Italian  has  fought  without  the 
brutalising  hate  of  race ;  and  no  single  instance  of  ferocity 
has  stained  his  chivalry :  for  their  chief  loves  all  brave  men, 


156  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

and  can  pity  even  the  oppressor.  Nor  has  this  reconsecra- 
tion  of  war  brought  back  its  barbarous  tradition,  or  its  retro- 
grade instincts.  He,  who  for  the  last  time  has  made  war 
noble  in  Europe,  has  cried  aloud  to  it  with  almost  fa- 
natic aspiration  for  universal  peace.  The  noblest  soldier 
of  our  day  tramples  on  the  pomp  and  pride  of  war  with 
native  loathing  and  contempt.  So,  too,  it  was  right  that  the 
popular  heroism  which  lay  burning  beneath  the  action  of 
state  policy  should  have  its  due  place  and  task.  If  all  the 
power  in  this  national  struggle  has  gone  to  the  great  and 
noble,  it  was  well  that  the  true  halo  should  rest  round  one 
who  is  of  and  with  the  people.  In  the  midst  of  convulsion 
and  strife,  there  rises  up  an  image  of  mildness,  simplicity, 
and  tenderness,  a  gentle  spirit  calming  passions,  jealousies, 
and  hatreds,  disarming  treachery,  and  putting  selfishness  to 
shame.  Men  have  seen  in  his  look  the  traditional  image  of 
goodness,  and  have  not  scrupled  to  call  him  the  Apostle  and 
Messiah  of  their  race,  as  at  once  the  deliverer  from  oppres- 
sion and  the  teacher  of  a  moral  regeneration. 

Of  all  the  comparisons  which  have  been  made  for  him 
there  are  none  which  are  not  very  wide  of  the  reality.  He 
has,  indeed,  none  of  the  qualities  of  statesman,  dictator,  or 
commander.  That  which  belongs  to  him  exclusively  is  a 
species  of  popular  inspiration  and  influence  as  by  electric 
contagion  of  emotions.  More  than  to  warriors  or  politicians 
he  belongs  to  the  order  of  religious  enthusiasts.  It  is  a  char- 
acter infusing  itself  through  a  nation.  One  story  there  is  in 
history  which  in  some  moments  recalls  the  features  of  his. 
One  character  there  has  been  with  whom  his  has  some  traits 
of  likeness.  Utterly  unlike,  as  in  many  respects  it  is  (and 
without  instituting  a  purely  fanciful  comparison),  there  is 
something  in  the  great  Liberator  of  the  spirit  of  the  Maid  of 
Orleans.     Sprung  like  her  from  the  depths  of  the  people 


GARIBALDI  I57 

with  whom  he  is  identified  in  every  fibre  of  his  heart,  he, 
too,  in  the  extreme  need  of  his  country,  has  upraised  it  by 
an  almost  miraculous  career.  As  in  hers,  the  destinies  of 
his  country  are  bound  up  in  his  mind  with  the  will  of  Provi- 
dence, from  whom  deliverance  is  looked  for  by  a  faith  truly 
religious.  She,  the  simplest  and  purest  of  spirits,  went  forth 
from  her  peasant  home  rapt  almost  in  a  trance  through  her 
deep  "pity  for  the  realm  of  France,"  and  intense  belief  in  the 
greatness  of  her  people,  and  carrying  daring  and  devotion 
to  the  verge  of  fanaticism,  awoke  in  the  very  depths  of  society 
the  heart  of  the  nation  out  of  the  midst  of  despair,  until  by 
the  sheer  strength  of  native  worth,  the  overwrought  people 
had  vindicated  for  themselves  their  honour  and  salvation, 
in  spite  of  every  human  obstacle,  and  in  defiance  of  every 
recognised  means  or  aid.  A  spirit  not  absolutely  of  another 
kind  burns  also  in  him.  He,  goaded  almost  to  madness  at 
the  sight  of  his  country's  degradation,  and  called  forth  by 
the  consciousness  of  a  nobler  destiny,  has  given  up  his 
every  thought,  act,  and  wish  as  to  a  sacred  cause ;  and 
touching  the  inmost  heart  of  his  brothers,  and  calling  them 
round  a  king  in  whom  the  nation  itself  is  idealised  before 
his  eyes,  has  led  them  on  to  incredible  success,  and  inspired 
them  with  unconquerable  faith.  She  who  breathed  life 
into  France,  her  work  once  done,  was  a  peasant  girl  again. 
So,  too,  the  rock  of  Caprera  lives  in  the  hearts  of  millions  of 
Italians  as  the  emblem  of  perfect  worth,  of  moral  dignity, 
and  of  faith  unwavering. 


VI 

AFGHANISTAN 

(1879) 

At  the  close  of  the  second  administration  of  Lord  Beaconsfleld, 
in  December  i8yg,  public  opinion  was  deeply  excited  over 
the  wanton  invasion  of  Afghanistan  and  the  continued 
Indian  warfare  instigated  by  the  Viceroy  as  part  of  his 
policy  of  Imperial  expa^ision.  Mr.  Gladstone  and  the 
leaders  of  the  Liberal  party  were  incessantly  denouncing 
these  adventures  in  speeches  which  led  to  the  fall  of  the 
Government  early  in  1880. 

I  was  at  the  time  in  close  touch  with  them  and  in  con- 
stant relations  with  Mr.  John  Morley,  then  editor  of  the 
Fortnightly  Review,  I  carefully  studied  the  news  of 
the  Afghan  war  and  the  military  occupation  of  Kabul, 
seeing  all  telegrams  published  in  India  or  at  home.  The 
system  of  secrecy  by  means  of  the  ^'military  censorships^ 
was  not  then  organised  so  strictly  as  it  has  been  in  our 
later  wars. 

Besides  this,  I  was  in  daily  communication  with  the 
late  Lord  Hobhouse  and  the  late  Sir  Henry  Norman,  and 
other  old  soldiers  and  officials,  who  voluntarily  supplied 
me  with  information  not  known  outside  the  India  Office, 
and  with  private  letters  written  home  by  officers  in  ac- 
tive service.     I  received  a  long  correspondence  from  Lord 

158 


AFGHANISTAN  159 

Lytton  himself,  and  I  saw  letters  from  a  former  Viceroy, 
besides  others  from  officers  in  the  front  who  were  unknown 
to  me  and  to  whom  I  was  unknown. 

By  these  means  I  was  in  possession  of  a  body  of  exact 
and  authoritative  details  as  to  all  that  took  place.  The 
attempts  made  by  officials  in  India  to  trace  my  means  of 
information  signally  failed,  because  the  writers  of  the  con- 
fidential letters  shown  me  did  not  even  know  my  name. 
With  the  support  of  the  editor  and  of  his  political  friends,  I 
wrote  two  articles  in  the  Fortnightly  Review,  December 
1879  and  March  1880  {Nos.  156,  159),  using  the  mass 
of  special  knowledge  I  possessed.  The  first  of  these  was 
reprinted  as  a  pamphlet,  and  was  circulated  widely  by  one 
of  the  Liberal  Associations  at  their  cost.  Attempts  were 
made  to  dispute  some  of  my  statements  of  fact;  but  I 
never  saw  any  replies  which  were  not  either  irrelevant  or 
false  —  ^^  as  false  as  a  bulletin.''^ 

I  now  reissue  the  more  general  and  permanent  parts 
of  the  first  of  these  articles.  I  reserve  for  the  future  the 
special  details  of  the  incidents  of  the  war;  but,  as  I  still 
hold  my  papers  and  many  letters  from  eminent  persons,  I 
can  substantiate  all  that  I  state  when  the  time  comes.  It  is 
fortunate  that  our  relations  with  Afghanistan  are  now 
friendly  and  permanent,  so  that  no  indiscretions  can  be 
charged  in  returning  to  a  history  nearly  thirty  years  old. 

The  general  principles  of  international  morality  and  of 
justice  herein  maintained  are  just  as  important  as  ever 
and  are  quite  as  much  in  danger  of  being  violated.  In- 
deed, the  same  crimes  and  follies  have  been  continually 
committed,  and  by  both  political  parties  alternately,  in  the 
long  series  of  A  sian  and  African  wars  of  the  last  thirty 
years  —  down  to  the  most  recent  of  all  —  the  idiotic  cam- 
paign in  Tibet  (1908). 


l60  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

"A  superior  race  is  hound  to  observe  the  highest  current 
morality  of  the  time  in  all  its  dealings  with  the  subject 
race.''  —  John  Morley. 

By  what  title  are  we  treating  the  Afghan  people  as  rebels? 
By  what  law  are  our  generals  hanging  men  on  charges  of 
leading  the  enemy's  forces  to  battle?  Whence  comes  our 
right  to  kill  priests  who  incite  their  people  to  resist  us  ?  That 
our  armies  have  invaded  Afghanistan,  and  in  two  expeditions 
have  crushed  the  soldiers  from  Kabul,  we  all  know.  That 
we  have  broken  up  what  shadow  of  state  existed ;  that  we 
have  its  titular  ruler  a  prisoner;  that  we  have  seized  his 
treasures,  and  destroyed  the  centre  of  his  capital  —  all  this  is 
very  true.  It  is  what  invaders  and  conquerors  usually  do,  or 
at  least  have  done  in  former  ages.  But  having  done  all  this, 
by  what  right,  in  public  law  or  in  moral  justice,  do  we  now 
affect  to  treat  the  conquered  people  as  rebels,  and  hang  the 
generals  and  the  priests  who  led  them  to  defend  their  country  ? 
We  well  know  what  is  the  official  plea  for  these  acts.  It  was 
not  unskilfully  concocted.  It  is  this.  Down  to  last  August 
we  had  on  our  North- Western  frontier  in  India,  it  was  said, 
a  strong,  friendly,  and  independent  kingdom.  We  had 
lately  entered  on  closer  terms  of  amity  with  this  friendly 
nation,  and  had  covered  its  sovereign  with  personal  favours. 
We  had  an  envoy  and  a  brilliant  suite  in  his  capital.  Sud- 
denly a  faction  in  his  army  mutiny;  they  overpower  our 
friendly  prince ;  they  attack  our  embassy,  and  kill  our  en- 
voy and  his  escort.  The  prince  for  the  moment  is  unable  to 
restore  order ;  we  go  to  assist  him ;  he  even  invites  us.  We 
enter  his  kingdom  to  assist  in  maintaining  the  police.  A 
few  murderers  and  robbers  still  trouble  the  security  of  his 
capital.  We  must  assist  our  friend  to  overcome  his  rebels 
and  mutineers  at  home. 


AFGHANISTAN  l6l 

So  far  the  official  plea  runs  smoothly  enough.  But  in  the 
face  of  the  facts  we  know,  it  has  grown  too  unreal  to  be 
stated  with  gravity.  Our  expedition  to  restore  order  in  the 
midst  of  a  mutiny  becomes  an  army  of  invasion  and  conquest. 
India  heaves  with  the  effort.  The  North-West  is  denuded 
of  its  troops ;  swept  of  its  baggage  animals,  its  supplies,  and 
its  material.  Millions  and  millions  are  poured  out  with  an 
almost  desperate  eagerness  to  win.  As  the  invading  army 
advances,  it  finds  that  a  war  is  before  it  at  least  as  formidable 
as  the  former  war  of  conquest.  The  mutineers  prove  to  be 
the  regular  troops  of  Kabul ;  they  fight  battles  with  obstinacy ; 
they  do  all  that  a  half-armed  and  semi-civilised  race  of  moun- 
taineers can  do  to  defend  their  homes  and  their  freedom. 
Our  armies  advance  with  skill  and  rapidity ;  the  resistance  is 
crushed  out  in  a  series  of  battles,  bloody  enough  to  the  de- 
feated, and  certainly  spoken  of  as  victories  at  home.  The 
capital  is  occupied  with  all  the  formalities  of  a  conquered 
city;  and  the  people  are  dealt  with  as  national  enemies.  It 
turns  out  that  in  all  probability  the  friendly  prince  was  him- 
self the  author  of  the  attack ;  that  he  must  be  kept  a  prisoner, 
and  no  doubt  will  be  tried  for  his  life ;  his  property  is  seized, 
his  palace  destroyed,  and  his  titular  kingdom  is  treated  as 
a  thing  of  the  past.  The  occupied  country  is  dealt  with  as  a 
conquered  province ;  and  an  outcry  is  raised  from  our  soldiers 
to  annex  it  without  more  ado. 

It  seemed  good  last  year  to  the  British  Government  to 
invade  a  neighbouring  independent  people.  That  people 
was  a  group  of  rude  tribes  hardly  formed  into  a  state,  fiercely 
fanatical  in  religion,  and  proud  of  their  freedom  and  inde- 
pendence. After  laying  heavy  burdens  on  suffering  India, 
our  armies  succeeded  in  crushing  the  national  defence,  in 
driving  the  sovereign  into  exile  and  death,  in  destroying  what 
cohesion  had  previously  existed  in  his  name.     A  period  of 

M 


1 62  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

confusion  followed,  the  kingdom  dissolved  into  separate  and 
unsettled  groups,  and  the  tribes  and  chiefs  made  the  most  of 
their  new  independence.  Some  partial  attempt  at  resettle- 
ment followed.  A  son  of  the  dead  sovereign,  just  released 
from  a  long  imprisonment,  succeeded  in  securing  some  show 
of  authority  in  the  capital,  and  in  some  other  parts  of  the 
country.  It  was  convenient  to  treat  him  as  the  ruler,  and  we 
partly  enabled  him  to  become  so  in  fact.  The  late  envoy 
forced  on  the  bewildered  prince  such  terms  as  it  suited  us  to 
dictate,  and  with  fair  words  a  nominal  peace  was  effected. 

But  all  who  knew  Afghanistan  warned  us  that  the  treaty 
was  a  piece  of  paper,  that  the  prince  had  no  real  power  to 
execute  the  treaty,  even  if  he  had  the  will,  that  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  country  repudiated  him,  that  the  leading  spirits 
of  the  people  regarded  him  as  a  traitor,  a  puppet,  and  a 
coward.  If  ever  warning  was  justified  by  events  it  was  that 
which  all  the  cooler  heads  foretold  when  they  said  that  to 
make  your  puppet  sign  an  ignominious  treaty  was  not  to 
conquer  a  country,  and  to  send  a  small  force  to  hector  over 
the  puppet  in  his  mountain  capital  was  a  wild  and  foolhardy 
scheme.  However,  it  was  done.  Into  the  midst  of  a  turmoil 
of  fierce  tribes,  smarting  under  defeat,  furious  with  religious 
hatred,  and  torn  by  intrigues  and  dissensions,  the  so-called 
envoy  was  sent  to  enforce  the  terms  of  a  so-called  treaty  which 
the  tribes  had  in  no  way  accepted,  to  dictate  to  a  sovereign 
who  was  hardly  obeyed  by  his  own  bodyguard,  and  scarcely 
secure  in  his  own  capital.  Almost  the  one  thing  that  Afghans 
and  their  chiefs  for  generations  had  agreed  in  was  to  resist 
the  presence  of  British  soldiers  and  officials.  And  here,  by 
virtue  of  a  treaty  which  these  chiefs  repudiated,  signed  by  a 
prince  whom  many  of  them  did  not  acknowledge,  a  small 
British  force  entered  the  capital,  headed  by  the  soldier  who 
last  year  sought  almost  to  force  the  Khyber  Pass,  and  who 


AFGHANISTAN  163 

this  year  had  personally  dictated  the  treaty.  It  was  almost 
to  invite  an  outrage,  to  make  a  collision  inevitable.  What 
else  could  we  have  done  if  we  wished  an  excuse  for  a  new 
war? 

But  this  peaceful  ambassador  was  only  an  ambassador 
in  name.  He  came  at  the  head  of  a  squadron.  The  so- 
called  suite  of  this  so-called  envoy  consisted  of  a  small  mili- 
tary force  of  about  sixty  or  seventy  picked  soldiers.  It  is 
true  they  were  not  strong  enough  for  an  army;  but  they 
were  much  too  strong  for  an  embassy.  It  was  not  quite  a 
corps  of  occupation,  nor  quite  a  corps  of  observation,  and 
they  came  in  what  was  at  least  a  military  truce.  But  they 
practically  served  the  purpose  of  an  army  of  occupation  and 
of  a  corps  of  observation ;  and  they  visibly  represented  an 
ample  army  in  reserve.  When  we  know  what  feats  have 
been  done  by  British  soldiers  in  the  midst  of  barbarous  races, 
it  was  only  a  little  in  excess  of  the  ordinary  odds.  They 
were  not  there  exactly  to  fight  —  they  were  there  to  overawe 
and  to  control.  The  time  was  not  precisely  war ;  but  it  was 
little  more  than  a  truce. 

The  small  corps  came  into  Kabul  much  as  the  famous  uhlan 
in  1870  rode  into  a  French  town.  He  too  did  not  come  to 
fight ;  he  came  to  overawe  the  citizens  into  carrying  out  his 
orders.  The  Red  Prince  was  never  far  behind ;  and  in  the 
meantime  the  uhlan  took  military  occupation  of  the  city,  and 
the  practical  control  of  the  citizens.  But  the  uhlan  took  his 
chance  of  being  shot.  The  position  of  Sir  L.  Cavagnari  was 
not  exactly  this.  But  it  was  not  very  far  from  it.  He  had 
gone  into  the  midst  of  a  turbulent  enemy,  in  advance  of  the 
regular  army.  He  held  a  nominal  political  office,  and  he 
came  under  the  terms  of  a  so-called  treaty.  But  he  came, 
as  he  well  knew,  with  his  life  in  his  hand.  I  shall  say  noth- 
ing to  dishonour  the  memory  of  a  brave,  but  wild  man.     He 


164  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

thought  that  audacity  might  supply  the  place  of  troops;  he 
believed  that  his  death,  if  he  died,  would  be  heroic.  He  has 
died  as  a  brave  soldier  dies,  at  the  head  of  his  men,  fighting 
against  overwhelming  odds  with  a  half-barbarous  enemy, 
whom  he  meant  to  conquer  and  whom  he  thought  to  overawe. 
But  he  has  died,  as  a  soldier  dies,  in  what  was  virtually  an 
act  of  war. 

This  so-called  envoy  was  in  truth  a  soldier  sent  out  on  an 
advanced  post,  into  a  country  seething  with  civil  war,  from 
which  the  invading  armies  had  scarcely  withdrawn,  under  a 
treaty  signed  by  a  mere  unrecognised  pretender.  He  is 
sent  into  a  city  which  admits  no  other  European  on  any 
pretence ;  where,  as  Lord  Lawrence  used  to  say,  no  Euro- 
pean's life  is  safe  for  an  hour,  and  where  no  Ameer  could 
protect  him ;  amongst  wild  mountaineers  and  fanatical  Mos- 
lems, who  regard  the  presence  of  an  Englishman  as  a  personal 
humiliation.  He  was  sent  out  with  a  small  force  really  to 
secure  the  advantages  of  a  war,  which  all  sensible  men  said 
was  far  from  ended.  To  treat  the  death  of  this  soldier, 
ordered  out  on  a  forlorn  hope  like  this,  as  the  murder  of  an 
ambassador  to  a  civilised  power,  to  be  avenged  with  all  the 
punctilio  of  European  diplomacy,  is  mere  chicanery.  And 
upon  this  chicanery  is  built  up  the  claim  to  punish  the  last 
efforts  of  Afghan  self-defence  as  mutiny,  rebellion,  and 
murder. 

Even  this  chicanery  itself  is  not  consistently  maintained. 
The  legitimate  mode  of  redressing  the  slaughter  of  an  envoy 
is  to  make  war  upon  the  state,  to  coerce  its  government,  and 
to  obtain  satisfaction.  But  war  with  a  state,  however  great 
the  provocation,  gives  no  right  to  hang  generals  and  priests, 
who  head  the  national  resistance.  If,  in  the  very  act  of  war, 
the  state  is  reduced  to  atoms,  and  its  government  shattered 
or  dissolved,  that  may  give  a  right  to  the  injured  Power  to 


AFGHANISTAN  165 

punish  the  actual  offenders  itself,  and  to  set  up  a  government 
of  its  own.  But  what  we  now  complain  of  is,  not  the  pun- 
ishment of  the  men  who  committed  the  outrage,  or  fair 
attempts  to  restore  a  government,  but  the  hanging  of  generals 
and  priests  whose  crime  is  to  have  animated  a  national  de- 
fence, the  proclaiming  that  all  who  resist  the  British  invader 
shall  be  treated  as  rebels,  and  the  setting  rewards  upon  their 
heads.  For  this  there  is  no  justification  whatever  in  public 
law,  in  morality,  or  even  decency. 

Against  whom  are  these  men  rebels?  You  have  seized 
their  ruler  as  a  prisoner :  from  the  first  he  was  practically  a 
hostage.  You  are  about  to  try  him  for  his  life  on  the  charge 
that  he  instigated  or  approved  of  the  attack.  How  came 
the  Afghan  soldiers  at  Charasiab  to  be  mutineers?  They 
fought  as  regular  regiments  under  their  own  native  officers, 
and  to  all  appearances  at  the  secret  orders  of  their  nominal 
prince.  Where  is  the  government  that  they  defy?  There 
is  no  government,  or  shadow  of  government,  except  the 
British  army,  and  the  late  government  which  is  now  its  pris- 
oner. And  the  British  army  are  plainly  invaders  who  have 
deposed  two  sovereigns  and  destroyed  two  governments. 
Are  the  men  you  hang  the  authors  of  the  attack  on  the  em- 
bassy? Where  are  the  proofs  of  it?  What  is  the  evidence 
that  satisfies  a  court-martial,  on  fire  with  military  vengeance ; 
smarting  under  a  bitter  catastrophe,  and  the  cruel  death  of 
brave  comrades?  What  is  the  law  you  use  in  your  drum- 
head commissions,  whence  issue  no  reports  that  you  do  not 
countersign,  where  is  no  independent  or  civilian  witness? 
The  men  whom  you  hang,  you  pretend,  have  abetted  the 
outrages  after  the  fact,  by  resisting  the  invaders  of  their  coun- 
try, by  taking  arms  against  the  British  forces. 

By  this  military  indictment,  every  soldier  in  the  Afghan 
armies  supports  the  rebels;   rebels  are  those  who  abet  the 


1 66  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

mutineers ;  mutineers  are  those  who  resist  the  British ;  and 
those  who  resist  the  British  are  guiky  (after  the  fact)  of 
murder  of  the  British  envoy.  Mutiny,  rebellion,  outlawry, 
murder,  on  your  lips  are  nothing  but  random  phrases,  tossed 
together  by  soldiers,  parading  the  terms  of  law  and  justice ; 
who  really  come  to  conquer  a  brave,  but  turbulent  race ;  who 
mean  to  kill  all  who  oppose  them,  and  to  terrify  the  rest  into 
the  show  of  submission.  The  pretexts  that  justify  this  un- 
soldierlike  slaughter  of  prisoners  of  war  are  chicanery,  worthy 
of  Scroggs  and  Jefferies.  And  the  putting  men  to  death  by 
legal  chicanery  bears  an  ugly  name  in  English  history.  The 
meaning  of  it,  that  which  justifies  it  in  the  eyes  of  soldiers, 
and  probably  of  some  politicians,  is  this  —  that  since  the 
difficulties  of  subduing  Afghanistan  permanently  are  very 
great,  and  the  forces  that  are  sent  to  do  it  are  very  small,  and 
since  Kabul  is  in  the  heart  of  Asia  away  from  all  European 
observation,  and  veiled  by  the  "military  censure,"  recourse 
must  be  had  to  terrorism. 

It  would  be  better  to  give  up  this  affectation  of  legality, 
and,  if  it  is  necessary  to  herald  a  war  of  conquest  with  proc- 
lamations in  the  style  of  Oriental  Caliphs,  to  open  thus :  — 
*'  Be  it  known  to  all  men  in  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa,  in  the 
name  of  the  Empress  of  India,  and  so  forth.  Whereas, 
for  sufficient  reasons,  we  have  determined  to  subdue  the 
people  of  Afghanistan,  we  hereby  warn  you  not  to  resist 
our  victorious  armies.  If  you  oppose  our  good  pleasure, 
we  shall  hang  some  of  you,  until  the  others  obey  and  submit. 
Such  part  of  the  city  as  we  think  fit  we  shall  destroy,  and  it 
is  only  in  mercy  that  we  do  not  destroy  it  entirely.  We  shall 
kill  and  burn  until  the  people  come  to  know  that  our  will  is 
irresistible.     Imperium  et  Lihertas.     Rule  Britannia  ! " 

I  am  not  making  any  general  charge  of  cruelty  against 
our  soldiers  and  generals.     We  have  no  evidence  that  they 


AFGHANISTAN  1 67 

acted  in  the  thirst  for  blood,  nor  in  any  lust  of  outrage.  For- 
tunately things  are  not  so  bad  as  that.  English  gentlemen 
are  not  suddenly  converted  into  Mouravieffs,  Gallifets,  and 
Chefket  Pashas.  Nor  do  I  assert  that  they  acted  worse 
than  soldiers  always  act  who  are  left  to  themselves  and 
permitted  to  hang  civilians.  Their  moderation  in  hanging 
contrasts  favourably  with  that  of  Russian  or  Turkish  gen- 
erals suppressing  an  insurrection.  My  charge  is  a  perfectly 
definite  one.  It  is  that  they  are  permitted  to  hang  people 
at  all  as  rebels;  that  they  should  be  suffered  to  set  rewards 
on  the  heads  of  soldiers  and  generals  who  meet  them  in  open 
battle;  that  they  should  be  allowed  to  execute  prisoners  in 
cold  blood  (short  of  any  case  of  specific  murder  proved 
against  the  criminal) ;  that  they  have  power  by  proclamation 
to  convert  the  national  defence  of  a  free  people  into  rebellion 
and  mutiny;  that  they  should  be  left  to  be  the  sole  judges 
of  what  constituted  this  offence.  Lastly,  my  complaint 
is  that  British  ofiicers  sent  to  invade  and  conquer  an  inde- 
pendent people  should  be  authorised  to  do  so  by  terrorism 
—  by  the  use,  that  is,  not  of  their  swords  and  rifles  in  battle, 
but  by  the  rope  and  the  torch  when  no  one  is  left  to  fight. 

To  all  this  the  one  defence  is,  as  always  —  the  prestige 
of  our  Indian  Empire,  the  extreme  paucity  of  our  forces  in 
Asia.  They  say.  The  troops  we  can  spare  to  hold  vast 
territories  are  so  few,  the  importance  of  our  Eastern  Empire 
is  so  enormous,  the  difhculties  of  subduing  vast  mountain 
tracts  with  two  or  three  thousand  Europeans  are  so  great 
that  we  cannot  be  bound  by  European  law,  that  we  can  only 
exist  —  by  terrorism  in  fact.  Now  to  say  that  it  is  impossible 
to  apply  the  public  law  of  Europe  in  the  East  is  no  answer 
at  all.  Our  very  charge  is,  that  they  do  apply  the  forms 
and  fictions  of  European  law,  whenever  it  suits  them,  and 
just  so  far  as  it  suits  them,  and  throw  these  forms  off  the 


1 68  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

moment  they  tell  on  the  wrong  side.  In  dealing  with  Ori- 
ental races,  it  has  become  a  settled  practice  with  some  Brit- 
ish Governments  to  assert  and  exact  all  the  rights  that  can 
be  grasped  under  the  strict  letter  of  European  diplomacy, 
and  to  recognise  none  of  the  obligations  and  limits  of  Euro- 
pean law,  whenever  they  cease  to  be  convenient. 

The  dilemma  is  this.  If  they  go  to  Kabul  under  the 
rights  of  public  law,  they  are  acting  there  in  defiance  of  public 
law.  If  they  deny  that  public  law  can  be  applied  to  Afghans, 
how  ludicrous  is  the  plea  of  the  sacred  person  of  our  envoy, 
the  mutiny  against  a  friendly  prince,  the  constructive  rebel- 
lion, and  the  ex  post  facto  murders?  The  public  law  of 
Europe  is,  perhaps,  in  all  its  forms,  or  in  all  its  rules,  not 
capable  of  strict  application  in  Asia.  But  to  a  civilised  and 
honourable  people  that  cannot  mean  that  they  are  exempt 
from  all  law  in  Asia,  from  the  spirit  and  principle  of  public 
law  as  well  as  from  its  forms;  that  cannot  justify  them  in 
using  the  terms  of  public  law  in  order  to  entrap  and  mystify 
Asiatic  rulers,  and  then  to  laugh  at  the  very  essence  of  public 
law,  if  it  hinders  their  own  objects.  To  a  great  people  at 
the  head  of  modern  civilisation,  the  difficulties  of  applying 
the  public  law  of  Europe  to  people  in  Asia  involve  most 
scrupulous  care  to  follow  that  which  is  beyond  and  behind 
all  public  law  in  Europe,  a  real  and  healthy  sense  of  equity, 
to  look  at  the  things  as  they  are,  to  treat  half-civilised  races 
of  different  religion  and  habits,  from  the  point  of  view  of  a 
wise  understanding  of  their  prejudices  and  their  ignorances, 
to  bear  ourselves  always  as  their  guides  in  civilisation  and 
justice. 

Now  throughout  this  Afghan  war  (it  is  not  the  first  nor 
the  last  war  that  has  been  waged  by  England  on  that  plan) 
it  is  laid  down  on  system  that  our  troops  are  to  enter  the 
enemies'  country,  whether  they  be  independent  tribes,  rebels, 


AFGHANISTAN  1 69 

mutineers,  or  robbers  is  immaterial ;  in  any  case  the  country 
is  treated  as  in  "insurrection"  and  general  outlawry;  and, 
as  the  troops  are  too  few  to  occupy  and  permanently  hold 
so  vast  an  area,  they  are  to  kill  and  burn,  ravage  and  destroy, 
so  far  as  may  be  requisite  to  secure  submission.  They  are 
to  behave  just  as  Edward  I.  behaved  when  he  was  conquering 
Wales  or  invading  Scotland,  just  as  Ceesar  behaved  in  Gaul, 
or  Cortes  in  Mexico.  That  is  to  say,  they  are  to  hold  them- 
selves free  from  all  the  laws  of  war  as  understood  in  modern 
Europe;  they  are  not  bound  to  fight  as  civilised  nations 
fight;  if  they  are  too  few  to  subdue  the  country  physically, 
they  must  terrorise  it  into  submission;  the  end  is  conquest, 
and  any  means  leading  to  that  end  are  good. 

Now  I  say  that  no  circumstances,  no  diplomatic  outrages, 
no  pieces  of  paper  or  treaties  with  mountain  chiefs,  can 
justify  this  system  of  conquest  by  terrorism.  The  spirit 
of  evil  is  on  it,  everywhere  and  always ;  in  Asia,  or  in  Europe, 
in  the  mountains  of  Afghanistan,  or  in  the  valleys  of  the 
Balkans.  If  your  troops  are  too  few  to  conquer  and  hold 
a  territory,  by  the  public  laws  of  peace  and  of  war,  you 
should  keep  out  of  it;  if  the  tribes  you  wish  to  annex  do 
not  understand  modern  diplomacy,  it  is  no  ground  that  you 
should  sink  to  the  morality  of  a  hill  chief.  To  tell  us  that 
the  interests  of  India  are  paramount,  and  that  to  save  our 
power  and  our  credit  there,  all  things  are  permitted,  and 
that  all  morality  is  idle;  this  is  indeed  to  demoralise  the 
nation,  to  turn  our  Indian  Empire  into  a  curse  greater  to 
Englishmen  than  her  Mexican  and  Peruvian  conquests  were 
to  Spain ;  it  is  to  teach  a  free  people  the  creed  of  the  pirate. 
Let  the  old  watchwords  be  erased  from  all  English  flags: 
Dieu  et  mon  Droit  —  Honi  soil  —  and  the  rest,  are  stale 
enough.  We  will  have  a  new  imperial  standard  for  the  new 
Empress  of  Asia,  and  emblazon  on  it — Imperium  et  Barharies. 


lyo  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

It  concerns  the  honour  of  this  people,  it  especially  concerns 
the  credit  of  Parliament,  that  the  political  and  international 
side  of  these  foreign  wars  should  not  be  resigned  carte  blanche 
to  soldiers  with  a  roving  commission  to  conquer,  free  from 
all  reference  to  the  law  of  nations,  and  practically  exempt 
from  the  rules  of  war.  Above  all,  it  is  monstrous  that  they 
should  be  permitted  to  draw  round  them  a  strict  cordon 
of  secrecy,  and  exclude  all  information  of  an  independent 
or  civilian  kind,  even  to  the  civilian  government  they  serve. 
It  is  an  idle  pretence  that  the  secrecy  was  demanded  in  the 
military  interests  of  the  campaign.  It  was  enforced  to  ex- 
clude criticism,  to  avoid  observation,  to  withdraw  the  acts 
of  the  generals  from  the  control  of  the  civil  government, 
of  the  Parliament,  of  the  nation. 

No  doubt  generals  in  the  field  delight  in  nothing  so  much 
as  in  carte  blanche,  the  exclusion  of  all  political  control,  the 
suppression  of  all  criticism,  the  absorption  of  every  force 
civil,  political,  legal,  and  moral  into  the  one  convenient  autoc- 
racy —  Martial  Law  as  understood  at  headquarters.  Of 
course  these  heady  captains,  with  the  thirst  of  Alexander 
and  Napoleon  in  their  veins,  would  be  only  too  happy  to 
conquer  all  Asia  on  such  terms,  and  career  over  the  planet 
so  long  as  at  home  we  found  them  in  men  and  in  guns,  and 
asked  no  awkward  questions.  But  it  behoves  a  responsible 
government  and  a  free  Parliament  to  beware  that  these  men 
never  shall  be  let  loose  on  a  province  or  a  nation,  to  drag 
the  name  of  England  through  blood  and  dust,  to  shut  them- 
selves up  in  a  sealed  district  on  some  idle  military  excuse, 
and  then  to  set  to  work  with  fire  and  sword,  gun  and  halter, 
until  they  have  tamed  another  semi-civilised  and  indepen- 
dent people.  Such  things  may  cause  joy  in  military  clubs, 
and  their  admirers;  it  may  delight  those  who  believe  that 
England  can  civilise  the  East  by  force;  but  it  is  utterly  dis- 


AFGHANISTAN  I71 

honouring  to  a  nation  such  as  England,  and  it  disgusts  and 
shames  the  manly  spirit  of  our  thoughtful  working  people. 

Again  I  say,  I  do  not  charge  our  soldiers  and  generals  with 
promiscuous  cruelty.  Very  far  from  it.  I  know  and  honour 
amongst  them  many  most  gentle  and  generous  men.  They 
often  show  conspicuous  self-control,  and  a  quiet  mercifulness 
worthy  of  truly  brave  natures.  They  almost  never  lose 
their  heads,  and  seldom  indeed  do  they  catch  a  blood  lust 
like  French  or  Turkish  generals  in  an  insurrection.  Per- 
sonally at  home  we  all  know  them  as  English  gentlemen 
and  just  men.  But  I  complain  that  they  are  often  set  to 
tasks  such  as  no  soldier  should  have  given  to  him,  and  granted 
a  licence  such  as  should  be  trusted  to  no  general.  One 
could  not  trust  the  archangel  Michael  to  be  just,  or  the 
seraph  Abdiel  to  be  faithful,  in  a  position  so  trying. 

Our  soldiers  are  sent  into  a  district,  one  against  a  thousand 
or  ten  thousand,  usually  heated  with  some  tale  of  outrage 
to  avenge,  and  knowing  that  nothing  but  desperate  energy 
can  enable  them  to  win,  despising  their  enemy  as  "niggers," 
and  utterly  unable  to  look  on  them  as  soldiers;  they  are 
sent  into  a  province  or  a  kingdom  alone,  without  any  politi- 
cal control  or  civilian  witness,  and  they  are  simply  ordered 
to  chastise  the  rebels,  or  crush  the  resistance.  What  would 
have  been  the  consequences  had  the  Red  Prince  been  let 
loose  upon  France  without  any  civil  control  or  witness,  with 
orders  carte  blanche  to  bring  Frenchmen  to  their  senses,  and 
to  be  his  own  Vattel  and  Foreign  Secretary?  Prince  Bis- 
marck took  care  to  keep  his  generals  within  bounds.  Had 
he  not  done  so,  Europe  would  be  ringing  now  with  horror. 
What  then  must  it  be  when  soldiers,  on  fire  to  avenge  some 
outrage,  outnumbered  as  the  Spaniards  were  outnumbered 
in  Mexico,  are  sent  in  upon  a  "nigger"  people,  with  all  the 
physical  loathing  of  race,  and  the  inhuman  prompting  of 


172  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

their  religion,  to  tame  an  insurgent  tribe  ?  Angels  could  not 
be  trusted  to  do  the  horrid  work,  and  the  natural  result 
ensues. 

In  spite  of  the  conspicuous  coolness  and  generosity  of  our 
soldiers,  the  fact  remains  that  they  never  meet  their  equals 
or  a  civilised  foe.  A  generation  has  passed  since  English- 
men met  in  fight  white  men,  and  even  those  were  hardly  of 
European  civilisation.  They  never  fight  under  the  rules 
and  conditions  of  modern  war.  They  hardly  ever  fight 
with  a  foe,  whom  they  treat  as  an  honourable  foreign  enemy. 
They  are  for  ever  engaging  in  battues  of  black  skins,  red 
skins,  brown  skins,  "niggers,"  or  savages  of  some  kind. 
Their  enemies  are  almost  always  "rebels,"  or  "mutineers," 
or  "insurgents,"  or  "marauders,"  with  whom  they  do  not 
pretend  to  hold  the  conventional  laws  of  warfare.  Our 
officers,  therefore,  are  almost  always  partly  executioners, 
and  partly  criminal  police,  as  well  as  soldiers.  They  not 
only  use  their  swords,  but  they  have  ever  in  their  train  ropes 
and  halters,  gibbets  and  cats,  and  all  the  apparatus  of  a 
Russian  army  in  Poland.  They  seldom  fight  without  kill- 
ing prisoners  in  cold  blood  after  all  resistance  has  ceased. 
They  blow  them  from  guns  by  platoons,  they  hang  them 
from  the  first  tree,  they  shoot  them  in  squads,  they  flog 
them  by  scores,  they  bum  villages  wholesale;  they  hold 
drum-head  courts-martial  on  priests  and  officials;  they 
proclaim  martial  law  at  their  own  free-will. ' 

Again  I  repeat  that  I  do  not  charge  our  officers  or  men 
with  wanton  cruelty,  nor  do  I  say  that  they  become  personally 
savage,  except  in  rare  cases.  Nor  do  I  say  that  they  do  these 
things  without  general  orders,  or  without  a  very  fair  show 

*  Much  of  this  has  been  repeated  mutatis  mutandis  in  our  various  African 
wars,  where  again  we  were  fighting  against  raw  levies  and  native  races. 
See  the  Essay  on  Martial  Law  (1908). 


AFGHANISTAN  1 73 

of  actual  insurrection  and  real  outrage.  But  this,  as  a  fact, 
is  the  horrid  work  the  British  army  is  usually  called  on  to 
do  when  it  enters  the  field.  It  is  one  of  the  curses,  no  doubt, 
of  our  Empire ;  one  of  the  burdens  to  be  borne  by  a  nation 
which  builds  its  greatness  on  vast  continents  of  half-civilized 
people.  I  wonder  that  the  fine  stuff  of  English  gentlemen 
can  resist,  as  it  does,  the  contagion.  I  am  amazed  that  so 
few  of  them  get  brutalised  by  their  work.  There  were  men, 
we  know,  in  Jamaica  who  seemed  to  delight  in  hanging  and 
flogging  the  blacks.  And  I  myself  have  heard  a  young 
officer  say  that  what  pulled  him  through  a  desperate  wound 
in  the  Indian  "Mutiny"  was  the  crawling  to  the  window 
each  morning  to  see  the  niggers  hung  —  the  "niggers"  being 
prisoners  taken  in  the  battle  where  he  got  his  wound. 

But  not  the  less  necessary  is  it,  for  a  civilised  govern- 
ment and  people,  to  control  with  a  strong  hand  the  appeal 
to  military  law.  There  is  that  of  the  wild  beast  in  all  fighting 
men  heated  with  battle,  that  they  ought  almost  never  to 
be  turned,  with  the  blood  still  hot  upon  their  hands,  into 
governors,  executioners,  judges.  This  Martial  Law  is  a 
big  word  for  a  black  thing.  It  means  terrorism,  slaughter, 
violence  —  within  such  limits  as  a  soldier  thinks  convenient. 
It  is  strange  that  of  all  nations  on  the  earth,  except  possibly 
the  Russian,  the  English  nation  is  the  one  which  most  often 
proclaims  Martial  Law.  The  British  army,  of  all  armies 
in  the  world,  is  the  one  which  is  most  often  hanging,  shooting, 
or  punishing  prisoners  of  war.  And  of  all  civil  Governments 
on  earth,  unless,  perhaps,  that  of  the  Czar,  the  Parliament 
of  this  free  nation  is  the  one  which  is  the  readiest  to  hand 
over  countries  and  provinces  to  the  absolute  will  of  a  soldier 
flushed  with  victory. 

If  these  words,  quite  undeniable  as  they  are,  cause  pain 
and  anger  in  the  minds  of  honest  men,  the  fault  is  not  mine. 


174  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

I  do  not  pretend  to  be  a  man  of  peace  at  any  price,  nor  do 
I  deny  the  necessity  for  soldiers  and  the  duty  of  recognising 
war.  But  I  have  a  right  to  appeal  to  the  civilian  sentiments 
of  civilised  citizens,  and  to  ask  that  our  army  shall  be  held 
strictly  in  civil  control  and  consistently  used  in  a  civilised 
spirit.  No  honourable  soldier  can  refuse  such  a  claim. 
As  to  the  men  of  blood  and  of  swagger,  we  care  as  little  for 
their  wrath  as  for  their  insolence.  They  cannot  rise,  as  a 
French  statesman  said,  to  the  level  of  our  disdain.  Men 
who  fulfil  their  civil  duties  in  the  face  of  any  opposition, 
need  not  be  dismayed  by  the  courage  which  hurries  back  to 
banquets,  balls,  and  welcomes,  from  the  slaughter  of  "nig- 
gers," from  wild  raids  across  savage  districts  in  expeditions 
which,  like  a  tiger  hunt,  combine  at  once  a  battue  and  a 
picnic.  Such  men  entirely  mistake  the  true  temper  of  their 
fellow-citizens  at  home.  The  opinion  of  the  profession  or 
the  narrow  class  that  feeds  it  is  not  all  in  this  island.  There 
are  serious  men  here,  quite  as  eager  for  the  honour  of  their 
country  as  they  are,  who  have  thought  about  war,  its  history, 
its  duties,  and  trials  as  much  as  they  have,  who  turn  with 
a  sick  heart  from  this  never-ending  tale  of  invasion,  slaughter, 
repression,  military  executions,  and  martial  law. 

For  a  generation  the  Temple  of  Janus  for  us  has  hardly 
once  been  closed.  No  year  passes  that  British  troops  are 
not  fighting  somewhere,  and  never  a  white  or  a  civilised  foe, 
and  rarely  indeed  in  civilised  warfare.  To  us  these  men 
come  home,  yet  honourable  men  no  doubt,  and  unpolluted 
with  savagery,  but  still  reeking  with  the  blood  of  men  killed 
in  unjust  quarrels,  of  men  put  to  death  in  cold  blood,  butch- 
ered in  the  loose  hubbub  of  military  retribution.  Will  some 
member  of  Parliament  exact  a  true  return  of  the  prisoners 
taken  in  battle  in  these  African  and  Asian  wars,  and  of  the 
punishments  inflicted  by  military  justice?    How  many  of 


AFGHANISTAN  1 75 

the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  fighting  men  who  have  so 
lately  met  our  armies  in  battle,  have  been  taken  prisoners 
in  the  field?  How  many  of  such  prisoners  have  been  hon- 
ourably treated  as  Europeans  treat  European  prisoners  of 
war?  What  are  these  wars  in  which  we  never  hear  of  pris- 
oners, in  which  prisoners  of  war  are  systematically  tried  by 
courts-martial?  Have  we  no  member  on  either  side  of  our 
docile  parties,  who  will  tear  open  the  secrets  of  the  "military 
censor,"  and  drag  before  the  nation  the  true  story  of  this 
hanging  of  "niggers"? 

There  are  men  at  home  to  whom  these  things  are  never 
gilded  by  displays  of  personal  daring,  who  hear  the  groans 
of  the  prisoners  in  their  agony  amidst  all  the  cheers  of  ad- 
miring friends.  The  vast  mass  of  our  working  people,  in 
town  and  in  country,  loathe  these  criminal  wars,  and  turn 
from  the  instruments  of  these  wild  acts  of  retribution.  Bella 
geri  placuit,  nullos  habitura  triuniphos,  said  the  noble  Ro- 
man —  there  are  wars  too  odious  to  deserve  a  triumph. 
Our  soldiers  too  often  forget  this  maxim,  and  the  stern  warn- 
ing it  conveys.  There  is  no  response  in  the  mass  of  the 
nation  to  the  thoughtless  cheers  of  the  idle,  when  executioners 
and  hangmen  return  to  claim  a  triumph.  They  may  have 
done  their  duty,  and  may  have  done  it  without  passion: 
but  we  do  not  care  to  see  them ;  and  we  ask  of  the  Govern- 
ment that  sent  them  by  what  law  or  right  these  things  were 
done. 

To  all  that  is  said  there  is  always  one  monotonous  reply 
—  the  prestige  of  our  Asiatic  position  —  the  critical  neces- 
sities of  our  Indian  Empire.  If  this  means,  that  having 
a  great  possession  in  the  East,  its  importance  is  such  that 
neither  justice  nor  morality  have  anything  to  do  with  the 
matter,  then  this  nation  will  sink  to  the  Spain  of  the  Philips, 
if  it  ever  accepts  such  a  doctrine.     I  know  there  are  politi- 


176  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

cians  on  both  sides  who  have  quietly  made  up  their  minds, 
that  having  got  India  they  mean  to  keep  it  by  any  means 
and  all  means  which  come  to  hand ;  and  whatever  has  to  be 
paid  in  life,  or  in  waste,  in  guilt,  or  in  shame,  will  be  paid  to 
the  bitter  end.  To  such  men  we  have  but  one  short  answer 
—  we  do  not  argue  with  Pirates :  we  call  upon  civilised 
mankind  to  judge  them. 

It  is  just  because  we  have  a  deep  sense  of  all  that  we  ought 
to  do  in  India,  it  is  just  for  the  sake  of  India  itself,  that  we 
condemn  this  military  terrorism.  It  is  not  we  who  say  — 
Perish  India,  or  who  crudely  call  out  for  its  summary  aban- 
donment. For  my  part,  I  recognise  all  the  duties  which 
our  presence  there  has  imposed  on  us,  and  I  desire  to  fulfil 
those  duties  of  good  government  and  upright  dealing  at 
every  sacrifice  and  with  all  our  might.  It  is  because  I  desire 
a  just  rule  and  the  firm  and  peaceful  settlement  of  India, 
such  as  may  lead  to  the  ultimate  establishment  of  real  native 
governments,  that  I  protest  against  the  system  of  these  con- 
stant wars  of  retribution.  How  is  the  government  of  India 
ever  to  rise  to  the  level  of  a  just  and  beneficent  power,  or 
to  educate  its  people  to  govern  themselves,  when,  year  after 
year,  it  is  occupied  in  successive  wars  of  aggression  and 
repression,  of  terrorism  or  vengeance?  How  are  officers  to 
become  the  peaceful  guardians  of  a  contented  empire,  when 
they  are  for  ever  returning,  hot  with  revenge  and  triumph, 
from  a  promiscuous  battue  of  half-barbarous  "rebels"? 

The  day  when  the  white  and  the  dark  race  shall  feel  that 
they  are  fellow-citizens,  instead  of  conquerors  and  conquered, 
masters  and  subjects,  is  indeed  indefinitely  adjourned  by 
these  wild  raids  amongst  wild  tribes  in  the  spirit  of  Cortes 
or  Pizarro.  The  bad  blood  which  these  raids  enkindle  in 
every  vein,  the  desperate  sense  of  race-feud  which  they  breed 
in  the  native,  and  the  fierce  temper  of  disdain  which  they 


AFGHANISTAN  177 

rouse  in  us  —  these  are  the  real  perils  and  difficulties  of 
the  Indian  Empire.  Fed  by  this  slaughter  and  violence  and 
lawlessness,  that  empire  will  always  be  precarious,  will 
always  be  sinking  to  a  lower  level.  To  believe  that  an 
empire  can  for  ever  subsist  on  terrorism,  be  the  terrorism 
only  in  reserve,  is  to  believe  that  the  most  cynical  of  Turkish 
Pashas  or  Russian  Prefects  are  wise  politicians  and  true 
patriots. 

If  we  are  asked  what  do  we  mean  by  terrorism,  the  ques- 
tion is  easily  answered.  Terrorism  consists  in  the  killing, 
torturing,  or  punishing  A,  not  for  any  crime  committed  by 
A,  but  in  order  to  terrify  B,  C,  and  D  into  submitting  to 
your  will.  That  is  terrorism;  and  it  is,  always  and  every- 
where, evil  and  abominable,  in  Europe  or  in  Asia.  No 
circumstances  can  justify  it.  No  object  can  excuse  it.  And 
that  is  what,  we  say,  our  troops  have  done  in  Kabul,  and 
what  our  Government  has  authorised  them  to  do.  If  it  be 
objected  that  all  war  is  terrorism,  the  answer  again  is  simple. 
War  has  its  recognised  laws  as  much  as  peace,  and  they 
must  be  submitted  to  in  Asia  as  much  as  in  Europe.  If 
it  be  said  that  they  cannot  be  applied  in  Asia,  or  are  not 
understood  by  barbarians,  then  the  spirit  of  these  laws  must 
be  followed,  if  we  cannot  follow  their  letter.  They  are 
laws  like  the  laws  of  honour  which  bind  soldiers  as  such, 
which  distinguish  them  from  pirates,  banditti,  and  cut- 
throats, wherever  they  may  fight.  They  are  laws  which 
ought  to  bind  the  British  soldier  as  a  part  of  his  own  self- 
respect,  quite  apart  from  their  being  enforced  by  adverse 
opinion,  or  formulated  in  words  by  the  enemy.  And  the 
chief  and  centre  of  these  laws  are  these :  —  Thou  shalt  not 
kill  helpless  prisoners  of  war;  thou  shalt  not  kill  for  civil 
offences,  as  distinct  from  military  attack.  Both  are  summed 
up  in  this.     You  may  use  your  swords  and  your  rifles  in 

N 


178  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

battle  —  you  may  not  use  gibbets  and  ropes  in  cold  blood. 
And  we  tell  these  heroes  of  the  drum-head  and  the  halter 
that,  whether  it  be  in  Asia  or  in  Europe,  in  Africa  or  in 
America,  they  who  do  these  things  cease  to  be  soldiers,  and 
sink  to  the  level  of  hangmen  or  cut-throats.  Longitude  and 
latitude  have  nothing  to  do  with  it:  nor  have  the  habits 
and  ideas  of  the  particular  enemy.  It  is  a  matter  of  personal 
self-respect,  binding  on  gentlemen  and  on  soldiers  every- 
where. 


VII 

THE  ANTI-AGGRESSION  LEAGUE 


Before  the  second  ministry  of  Mr.  Gladstone  had  been  in  power 
for  two  years,  a  movement  was  started  to  check  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  aggressive  policy  abroad  which  it  was 
hoped  the  Mid-Lothian  campaign  had  suppressed.  It 
originated  with  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  the  late  Lord 
Hobhouse,  and  many  Members  of  Parliament,  journalists, 
and  political  speakers  who  were  dissatisfied  with  the  Zulu 
and  Transvaal  wars,  the  Borneo  annexation,  and  other 
expeditions.  After  many  private  meetings,  a  public 
conference  took  place  in  February  1882,  at  which  Mr. 
John  Morley  presided,  the  speakers  being  himself,  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer,  Lord  Hobhouse,  several  Liberal  M.P.'s, 
and  myself  Some  twenty  Members  were  present,  in- 
cluding three  who  have  been  Cabinet  Ministers  in  the 
present  Administration.  A  full  account  of  the  speeches 
and  of  the  policy  of  the  League  was  published  in  March 
1882,  entitled  Anti- Aggression  League  Pamphlets,  No.  i. 
It  gave  the  names  of  some  thirty-six  Members  and  up- 
wards of  forty  Professors,  writers,  and  politicians  as 
forming  the  General  Council. 

From  this  Pamphlet  I  extract  a  few  sentences  of  the 
speech  I  made  at  the  Conference  (1Q08). 

The  vast  increase  of  the  Empire  in  Asia  and  in  Africa  has 
been  effected  almost  entirely  by  war.     If  we  count  up  the 

179 


l8o  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

years  since  1832,  and  set  against  each  year  the  wars  in  which 
we  have  been  engaged,  we  should  find  there  were  more  wars 
than  there  were  years ;  that  is,  if  now  and  then  a  year  might 
be  found  free  from  war,  the  next  gave  us  two,  three,  and 
even  four  wars  for  one  year.  If  we  take  a  period  of  fifty 
years,  we  shall  find  that  in  at  least  ten  of  these  years  we  have 
been  engaged  in  warlike  expeditions  in  Africa;  during  ten 
of  them  we  have  been  engaged  in  war  with  China.  During 
eight  of  these  years  we  have  had  wars  with  the  Afghans; 
during  ten  years  we  were  occupied  with  wars  in  India ;  during 
four  or  five  in  New  Zealand;  and  during  as  many  more  in 
Burmah,  Japan,  Persia,  or  Malayland.  During  fifty  years 
I  reckon  that  England  has  been  engaged  in  more  than 
forty  distinct  wars,  without  counting  either  the  Crimean 
War  or  the  constant  sputtering  of  war  with  the  Indian  hill 
tribes. 

Between  1850  and  i860  we  were  engaged  in  almost  in- 
cessant war  in  every  part  of  Asia,  from  the  Black  Sea  to  the 
Yellow  Sea.  The  fact  is  that  England  is  very  rarely  at  peace, 
and  has  more  wars  than  any  other  nation  in  Europe,  not 
even  excepting  Russia.  If  we  study  the  list  of  years  of  war, 
we  see  a  very  significant  fact :  there  are  some  years  in  which 
these  Asiatic,  African,  and  Colonial  wars  seem  suddenly 
to  lull.  They  ceased  during  the  three  years  of  the  great 
Crimean  War ;  they  ceased  after  the  great  European  revolu- 
tions of  1848  and  1849;  they  ceased  during  the  great  Ger- 
man war  in  1866;  and  they  ceased  again  during  and  after 
the  great  war  in  France  of  1870-1871.  During  periods  of 
great  danger  or  watchfulness  at  home,  they  cease.  That 
proves  they  are  under  our  own  control.  We  can  abstain 
from  them  when  our  safety  and  policy  demands  it.  The 
word  is  passed  to  our  prancing  pro-consuls  and  bold  am- 
bassadors in  Asia  and  in  Africa  that  they  must  be  quiet  at 


THE   ANTI- AGGRESSION   LEAGUE  l8l 

their  peril,  and  immediately  peace  reigns  on  all  our  remote 
frontiers ! 

In  old  Rome  there  was  the  ancient  Temple  of  Janus, 
with  its  gate  open  in  time  of  war,  and  closed  only  in  time  of 
peace.  I  sometimes  wish  that  we  too  had  our  Temple  of 
Janus  in  Palace  Yard,  so  that  our  senators,  as  they  go  down 
to  take  their  places,  might  see  the  gate  so  continuously  open, 
and  might  remember  that  we  were  still  at  war. 

Something  more  is  needed  to  check  war  than  the  ques- 
tions or  remonstrances  of  independent  Members  of  Par- 
liament. They  tell  us  how  much  they  need  support  from 
without.  And  our  movement  just  offers  such  support. 
It  proposes  a  union  of  men  of  affairs  with  men  who  address 
opinion  through  the  press,  or  by  books,  or  by  the  pulpit. 
A  persistent  tendency  to  war,  aggression,  and  commercial 
adventure  can  only  be  held  in  check  by  a  systematic  effort 
to  maintain  peace  and  international  justice.  The  criticisms 
of  politicians  require  behind  them  an  organic  and  construc- 
tive theory  of  a  policy  fitted  for  an  industrial  and  civilised 
age.  We  need  a  matured  system  of  international  morality 
—  a  practical  scheme  for  an  effective  policy  of  Peace. 

Such  we  make  bold  to  think  may  be  found  in  the  printed 
papers  and  programmes  of  the  intended  League,  which  will 
bring  together  men  of  influence  in  the  House  and  the  coun- 
try alongside  of  men  like  our  Chairman  and  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer,  who  in  their  works  have  elaborated  and  illustrated 
the  doctrines  from  the  point  of  view  of  social  philosophy. 
We  contemplate  no  abstract  Doctrine  of  Peace;  no  specific 
cut-and-dried  scheme  of  constitutional  change;  no  arbi- 
trary limitation  of  the  Executive.  We  seek  to  make  the 
Executive  conscious  of  its  responsibility  to  public  opinion; 
not  to  impose  chains  on  it  in  the  exercise  of  its  duty,  but  to 
make  it  feel  that  it  will  be  judged  according  to  its  deserts. 


l82  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

Nor  are  we  hostile  to  the  present  Government.  Our  move- 
ment counts  many  of  the  warmest  friends  of  it.  But  if  we 
find  men  like  Mr.  Gladstone,  Lord  Granville,  and  Lord 
Hartington,  so  continually  overpowered  by  the  self-will  of 
officials,  or  the  interests  of  certain  classes,  we  think  they 
need  help  to  enable  them  to  maintain  a  policy  of  peace  and 
justice.  Had  they  had  it,  they  might  have  found  it  easier 
to  withdraw  from  the  Transvaal  and  from  Afghanistan, 
when  they  knew  it  was  their  duty  to  do  so. 


n 

The  new  League  was  hardly  constituted  when  in  the  summer 
of  1882  our  entanglements  in  Egypt  threatened  to  involve 
us  in  a  new  war  with  practical  annexation.  The  League 
appealed  to  public  opinion,  and  especially  to  the  working 
class,  to  prevent  such  a  catastrophe.  A  great  meeting 
was  held  in  the  Memorial  Hall  on  June  26,  at  which  I 
was  asked  to  give  an  address  to  specially  invited  repre- 
sentatives of  Trades  Union  and  Labour  Associations.  It 
was  published  as  Anti-Aggression  League  Pamphlets, 
No.  2. 
From  this  report  I  extract  the  following  passages :  — 

When,  two  years  ago,  the  great  appeal  to  the  nation  was 
made,  we  thought  it  was  decided  for  ever  that  England 
should  renounce  the  policy  of  injustice,  and  cease  to  under- 
take the  control  of  half  the  human  race  in  the  name  of  civili- 
sation in  general  and  Great  Britain  in  particular.  We  were 
all,  perhaps,  a  little  too  confident  that  the  policy  we  rejected 
was  really  abandoned.  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  almost  every 
member  of  his  Ministry,  and  his  supporters  in  the  House, 
were  pledged  up  to  the  eyes  to  repudiate  it.     But  the  authors 


THE   ANTI-AGGRESSION  LEAGUE  183 

and  agents  of  the  system  remained.  In  a  country  like  ours, 
with  world-wide  commercial  interests,  with  n  Empire  that 
is  scattered  over  the  planet  as  no  empire  in  history  ever  was, 
with  traditions  of  conquest  and  domination,  founded  by 
war  and  maintained  by  enterprise,  it  was  inevitable  that  the 
classes  who  had  created  and  worked  the  system  should 
struggle  to  maintain  it. 

The  zealous  governors  and  fiery  consuls,  pushed  on  by 
the  resident  traders  seeking  new  markets,  the  viceroys  and 
envoys,  and  ambassadors,  trained  to  dictate  to  kings,  and 
to  extend  the  Empire  by  policy  or  force,  the  adventurous 
spirits  who  form  an  irregular  band  of  pioneers  in  advance 
of  the  limits  of  the  Empire,  the  permanent  foreign  and  colo- 
nial staff,  all  made  it  difficult  for  Mr.  Gladstone  and  his 
party  to  carry  out  the  pledges  they  had  given.  It  needed 
incessant  remonstrances  from  the  Press  and  the  people 
before  Afghanistan,  Kabul,  and  Candahar  were  finally  got 
rid  of;  the  shameful  war  with  the  Basutos  in  Africa  was  still 
suffered  to  drag  on ;  the  author  of  the  Zulu  war  —  Sir  Bartle 
Frere  —  was  not  immediately  recalled ;  the  unjust  imprison- 
ment of  the  Zulu  King  was  still  enforced ;  the  unjust  annexa- 
tion of  the  Transvaal  country  was  still  maintained,  till  it 
ended  in  a  shameful  and  iniquitous  war. 

The  League,  whose  objects  I  am  to  present  to  you  to- 
night, is  far  from  designing  any  opposition  to  the  Ministry 
of  Mr.  Gladstone,  or  any  wish  to  embarrass  it.  We  are 
most  of  us  steady  supporters  of  the  Liberal  party,  and  no 
man  could  more  heartily  desire  than  I  did  myself  the  great 
change  in  policy  which  brought  Mr.  Gladstone  to  power. 
And,  with  his  work  in  Ireland  and  in  the  reform  of  our  par- 
liamentary system  still  incomplete,  no  man  could  more 
honestly  than  I  regard  his  fall  as  a  national  calamity.  We 
are  not  acting,  I  say,  with  any  desire  whatever  to  embarrass 


184  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

the  Government.  We  are  seeking  only  to  remind  them 
of  their  principles.  People  do  not  always  like  to  be  reminded 
of  their  principles ;  but  it  is  good  for  them  —  it  is  always 
good  for  them  —  and  they  very  soon  find  out  that  those 
who  do  so  are  their  best  friends. 

Now,  what  are  the  principles  of  the  Anti-Aggression 
League?  Well,  they  are  the  principles  of  the  Mid-Lothian 
campaign,  of  the  Government  of  Mr.  Gladstone :  the  prin- 
ciples that  the  nation  ratified  in  May  1880.  That  is  to  say, 
that  this  policy  of  extending  the  Empire,  aggrandising  the 
power  of  Britain,  thrusting  ourselves  as  managers  and  mas- 
ters of  our  weaker  neighbours,  backing  up  our  adventurous 
people  in  every  enterprise,  just  or  unjust,  bullying  the  weak 
tribes,  making  petty  kings  our  vassals,  opening  markets  by 
gunboats,  and  maintaining  controllers  by  ironclads  —  this 
system  must  cease,  once  for  all.  The  Empire  is  a  great  deal 
too  big  and  scattered  and  composite  in  itself  to  need  any 
increase.  He  is  the  worst  enemy  of  our  country  who  seeks 
to  make  it  wider  and  more  difficult  to  defend.  We  have 
already  more  nations  to  manage  and  govern  than  we  can 
succeed  in  governing  well,  and  some  very  much  nearer  home 
than  Africa.  The  adventures  of  our  traders,  whether  in 
China  or  Japan,  or  South  Africa  or  North  Africa,  or  Aus- 
tralia, or  the  Pacific  Islands,  are  often  of  a  kind  that  cover 
us  with  shame  as  a  nation,  and  add  nothing  but  sorrow  and 
trouble  to  our  Governments. 

England,  in  spite  of  all  our  professions,  is  that  country 
which,  of  all  others,  has  the  oftenest  war  on  its  hands,  and 
is  the  oftenest  engaged  in  crushing  the  efforts  of  some  weaker 
people  for  independence.  The  German  Empire,  under  Bis- 
marck, is  a  model  of  a  peaceable  nation  compared  to  Eng- 
land ;  Russia  herself  has  not  so  many  wars,  and  all  the 
military  monarchies  of   the  world  put  together  are  not  so 


THE  ANTI-AGGRESSION  LEAGUE  185 

frequently  engaged  in  fighting  as  our  little  island,  shut  off  from 
the  warlike  people  of  Europe  by  the  "silver  streak."  In 
fifty  years  we  have  been  engaged  in  at  least  fifty  wars,  and 
a  year  hardly  ever  passes  without  military  operations  of 
some  kind  by  sea  or  land.  In  theory  every  British  Govern- 
ment is  a  firm  friend  of  peace,  and  every  party  repudiates  the 
idea  of  aggression.  But,  one  after  another,  every  Govern- 
ment finds  war  too  tempting  to  be  resisted. 

For  these  reasons  the  Anti-Aggression  League  has  requested 
me  to  address  a  meeting  of  men  who  were  chosen  to  represent 
the  working  classes  and  the  mass  of  the  industrious  com- 
munity, and  they  have  invited  you  to  consider  the  appeal 
that  I  make  to  you  for  support  and  co-operation.  This  great 
issue  of  our  age  —  the  replacing  of  the  old  international 
policy  of  war,  aggression,  and  rivalry  by  the  new  international 
policy  that  has  yet  to  be  of  peace,  forbearance,  and  mutual 
confidence  —  especially  concerns  the  great  labouring  class 
of  the  community,  and  its  best  hopes  lie  in  their  help.  You, 
if  I  may  address  myself  directly  to  those  here  to-night,  who 
represent  the  great  political  and  social  organisations  of  the 
workmen,  their  Trades  Unions,  their  Co-operative  Societies, 
their  political  clubs,  and  their  educational  institutes,  you,  I 
say,  have  nothing  to  gain  and  everything  to  lose  by  this  policy 
of  national  aggrandisement. 

Your  first  interest  is  peace,  for  the  horrors  of  war  fall  first 
and  heaviest  on  you.  You  are  the  bulk  of  the  people,  who 
suffer  most  and  first  in  times  of  national  distress.  You  are 
not  dazzled  by  the  prizes  and  honours  of  an  adventurous 
campaign.  These  new  markets  which  our  great  merchants 
are  ever  seeking  to  "open  up"  only  derange  the  labour  mar- 
ket at  home,  bringing  violent  gambling  in  the  employment  of 
capital,  to  be  followed  by  gluts,  reaction,  and  slack  trade 
upon  an  overstocked  market  and  an  overstimulated  labour 


1 86  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

population.  This  civilisation  which  our  official  and  our 
capitalist  classes  are  ever  eager  to  discharge  wholesale  upon 
some  foreign  people  who  seem  very  much  to  object  to  it ;  this 
civilisation  which  they  seem  to  think  can  be  shot  like  the 
cargo  in  a  ship,  and  not  seldom  like  the  charge  in  a  cannon ; 
this  "civilisation"  is  no  interest  of  yours  and  no  work  of 
yours. 

You  have  nothing  to  gain  by  sacrificing  your  blood  and 
savings  in  order  that  more  traders  may  carry  gunpowder  and 
brandy  and  loaded  calicoes  further  and  further  into  the  wilds 
of  Africa;  in  order  that  the  Czar  may  find  himself  check- 
mated in  Central  Asia;  in  order  that  the  city  of  Alexander 
may  be  turned  into  a  French  or  Italian  town,  and  that  the 
salaries  of  thousands  of  Europeans  may  be  paid  out  of  the 
taxes  of  Egypt.  This  continual  stimulus  to  the  aggressive 
instincts  of  the  nation  is  a  continual  stimulus  to  the  power 
of  the  military  classes,  and  to  all  the  retrograde  elements  in 
our  political  life.  They  strengthen  the  power  and  the  oppor- 
tunities of  those  who  maintain  the  older  class  prejudices  of 
our  people,  and  they  retard  the  growth  of  industrial  habits 
and  aims.  The  policy  of  the  people  is  bound  to  be  a  peace 
policy  in  the  long  run ;  for  it  is  only  by  peace  that  the  con- 
dition of  the  people  can  possibly  be  raised,  and  it  is  only  by 
a  settled  habit  of  peace  that  we  can  learn  the  habit  of  social 
justice,  and  the  true  solution  of  all  our  social  problems. 

War,  the  rumour  of  war  —  the  very  breath  of  war  —  post- 
pones indefinitely  the  work  of  reforming  our  home  abuses, 
our  class  anomalies,  our  ancient  misgovernment.  It  post- 
pones the  remedies,  and  it  gives  a  new  authority  to  the  classes 
who  are  mainly  responsible  for  the  diseases.  Tell  those  who 
are  so  fond  of  touring  round  the  globe  to  import  —  (I  would 
rather  say  to  inflict)  —  their  civilisation  on  the  backward 
nations  and  tribes,  tell  them  that  you  want  civilisation  here 


THE   ANTI-AGGRESSION  LEAGUE  187 

at  home,  if  you  can  get  it  genuine.  Tell  those  who  are  so 
eager  to  govern  Arabs,  and  Africans,  and  Afghans,  and 
Chinese  at  modest  stipends  of  ;i{^40oo  or  ;^5ooo  a  year  —  ask 
them  to  see  what  can  be  done  in  the  better  government  of 
our  own  island. 

Before  they  settle  the  Eastern  question,  and  the  Central 
Asian  mystery,  and  the  great  Euphrates  Valley  imbroglio, 
ask  them  to  settle  the  land  question  in  Ireland  first,  and  then 
in  Scotland  and  in  England.  Ask  them  to  give  the  4,000,000 
of  hard-worked  people  of  London  the  chance  of  drinking 
pure  water;  ask  them  to  give  the  people  of  London  some 
means  of  controlling  their  own  affairs,  and  of  providing  for 
their  own  wants ;  ask  them  to  give  a  rational  system  of  local 
government  to  the  English  and  the  Scotch  and  the  Irish 
counties;  ask  them  to  do  something  to  get  our  vast  fabric 
of  law  out  of  the  chaos  of  obscurity  and  confusion  in  which 
it  is  involved.  Tell  them  that  there  are  fifty  burning  social 
questions  at  home  to  solve,  and  wants  of  the  English  people 
to  supply  before  they  undertake  to  civilise  the  human  race, 
and  cause  order  and  prosperity  to  reign  in  every  corner  of 
the  old  hemisphere,  in  every  island  at  least  of  the  new  hemi- 
sphere. Tell  those  noisy  philanthropists  who  call  heaven 
and  earth  to  witness  of  the  "anarchy"  on  the  Nile,  the 
"anarchy"  on  the  Balkans,  and  the  murderous  propensities 
of  the  Pacific  islanders  —  tell  them  to  go  and  do  something 
to  prevent  anarchy  in  Ireland.  Whilst  "civilisation"  is 
making  the  tour  of  the  world  on  board  ironclads  with  eighty- 
ton  guns,  civilisation  is  terribly  wanted  in  the  three  kingdoms 
at  home.  These  "crises"  and  "demonstrations"  suspend 
your  interests  and  silence  your  claims.  The  old  Roman 
said,  "In  the  midst  of  arms  the  laws  are  silent."  Silent  is 
law  in  every  sense,  and  the  reforming  of  law,  and  the  making 
of  good  laws  most  silent  of  all. 


1 88  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

Our  Prime  Minister,  not  many  years  ago,  set  down  some 
twenty-seven  questions  which  he  said  were  of  vital  and 
immediate  moment  to  the  people,  and  urgently  awaited  the 
attention  of  Parliament.  Is  one  of  the  twenty-seven  ever 
heard  of  in  the  midst  of  a  "crisis,"  on  the  eve  or  even  in  the 
moment  of  a  war,  when  the  whole  attention  of  Parliament 
and  the  Ministry  is  strained  after  some  fierce  international 
struggle?  The  hope  of  land  reform,  of  law  reform,  of 
municipal  reform,  of  county  reform,  even  of  the  supply  of 
wholesome  water,  is  adjourned  Session  after  Session. 
Ireland  — and  Ireland  is  only  a  case  of  old  international 
oppression  —  thrusts  out  everything,  and  now  the  condition 
of  Egypt  is  even  more  urgent  than  that  of  Ireland;  and  if 
this  terrible  imbroglio  on  the  Nile  were  to  land  us  in  a  Euro- 
pean war,  it  would  be  years  and  years  before  we  ever  heard 
again  of  any  one  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  twenty-seven  burning 
questions.  Therefore  it  is,  I  say,  that  peace,  international 
justice,  and  quiet  relations  with  all  our  neighbours,  are  the 
first  of  all  the  interests  of  the  workmen.  They  alone  of  the 
community  can  make  their  voice  heard  without  any  preju- 
dice ;  they  lose  most  heavily  by  war,  both  in  what  they  im- 
mediately suffer  and  in  what  they  have  to  surrender.  They 
may  leave  their  bones  to  wither  on  distant  lands,  but  they 
bring  back  no  fortunes,  no  honours,  no  new  markets  for  their 
capital,  no  new  posts  for  their  class.  They  only  can  speak 
out  boldly  and  with  the  irresistible  voice  of  conscience,  be- 
cause they  only  have  no  interest  in  injustice,  nothing  to  gain 
by  conquest,  and  everything  to  lose  by  interference. 


VIII 

EGYPT 

(1882) 

/  then  applied  these  principles  to  the  Egyptian  imbroglio. 

Now  I  ask  you  to  apply  these  principles  to  the  present  crisis 
in  Egypt.  In  what  I  have  hitherto  said,  I  have  been  express- 
ing the  views  of  the  League  in  whose  name  I  have  spoken 
to-night.  But  in  all  that  I  may  say,  on  the  immediate  cause 
of  this  crisis,  and  on  the  practical  policy  to  pursue,  I  would 
rather  be  taken  to  express  my  own  personal  opinion,  and  not 
the  view  of  any  group  whatever.  What  the  League  thinks  on 
the  crisis  may  be  seen  in  their  published  statement.  I  should 
like  to  add  something  to  that  statement  on  my  own  re- 
sponsibility. 

What  has  led  to  the  existing  stage  of  crisis  in  Egypt  ?  For 
a  long  time  past,  as  you  know,  the  European  nations  have 
been  running  a  race  together  as  to  which  should  be  foremost 
in  pressing  upon  Egypt  its  civilisation  and  its  protection. 
Their  civilisation  took  the  form  at  first  of  enormous  loans  of 
money  at  high  interest,  which  the  civilisers  advanced  to  the 
rulers  of  Egypt  in  the  philanthropic  spirit  in  which  Mr. 
Ralph  Nickleby  advanced  cash  to  his  pupils.  These  boun- 
ties of  "  civilisation"  amount  altogether  to  some  ;;^i  15,000,000. 
Then  the  civilisers,  when  they  found  the  country  utterly 
sinking  under  this  gigantic  burden  of  debt,  and  racked  by 
the  most  odious  misgovernment,  were  good  enough  to  invite 

189 


igo  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

themselves  to  fulfil  various  offices  at  large  salaries  to  keep 
things  a  little  straight.  By  a  parliamentary  paper  just  pub- 
lished, we  learn  the  names,  and  offices,  and  salaries  of  this 
vast  army  of  European  oflEicials  paid  out  of  the  taxes  of  the 
people  of  Egypt.  Their  total  number  is  1325;  their  total 
salaries  amount  to  £37^,704,  about  one-twelfth  part  of  the 
entire  available  expenditure  of  the  country.  The  number  of 
the  European  civilisers  is  some  60,000  or  (some  say)  100,000. 
In  consideration  of  their  beneficent  mission,  these  European 
missionaries  of  good  works  at  10  per  cent  have  been  exempt 
from  local  taxation.  A  native  pays  a  tax  of  12  per  cent 
annual  value  on  his  house;  the  European  lives  tax-free. 
The  native  fly-driver  pays  a  heavy  tax  on  his  carriage ;  the 
European  banker  drives  his  pair  tax-free.  Next,  the  civil- 
isers having  obliged  the  country  with  some  115  millions 
sterling  at  7  and  10  per  cent,  obtained  "concessions"  for 
about  thirty-five  millions  more.  Then  they  kindly  exempted 
themselves  from  taxation,  were  good  enough  to  set  up  local 
courts  in  which  they  had  the  right  to  bring  their  civil  and 
criminal  affairs  to  a  judge  of  their  own  nation.  An  army  of 
European  judges,  and  secretaries,  and  assessors,  and  bar- 
risters were  called  in  at  very  liberal  salaries,  who  kindly 
undertook  to  do  the  law  for  the  Egyptian  people. 

The  civilisers,  of  course,  could  not  flood  the  country  with 
their  gold,  make  themselves  free  of  local  taxation,  free  of 
local  jurisdiction,  without  coming  into  political  conflicts 
with  the  Egyptian  Government  and  people,  as  well  as  with 
one  another.  One  Khedive  or  ruler  of  Egypt  was  dethroned 
by  the  pressure  put  by  the  European  Powers  on  the  Sultan 
of  Turkey ;  another  was  put  in  his  place  who  well  understood 
that  he  would  be  protected  only  so  long  as  he  did  what  he 
was  told.  And  to  maintain  this  system  the  notable  device 
of  the  Control  was  set  up.     England  and  France  have  the 


EGYPT  191 

right  to  send  out  each  a  Controller  or  official  who  shall 
supervise  the  entire  expenditure  of  the  country,  provide  for 
due  payment  of  the  foreign  debt,  and  regulate  and  control 
the  Budget.  The  Controllers  are  the  tv/o  foreign  Chan- 
cellors of  the  Exchequer,  as  it  were,  to  the  Egyptians.  The 
whole  financial  system  of  the  country  is  under  their  super- 
vision. They  are  practically  in  the  position  of  the  House  of 
Commons  here,  having  ultimate  control  of  the  purse.  Tech- 
nically, I  know  they  have  no  veto ;  but  as  every  item  of  the 
Budget  passes  in  review  before  them,  and  as  they  can  object 
to  any  item  they  please,  the  Controllers  are  really  the  irre- 
sponsible rulers  of  Egypt.  Each  Controller  receives  a  salary 
of  nearly  ;^4ooo  a  year,  and  the  entire  cost  of  this  one  institu- 
tion is  ;^i 4,000  a  year. 

There  are  two  other  Controls,  so  that  the  Egyptian  people 
pay  about  ;^3o,ooo  a  year  for  the  luxury  of  not  being  allowed 
to  raise  or  to  expend  their  own  taxes  as  they  please,  for  fear 
that  their  foreign  creditors  may  not  get  the  whole  of  their 
four  and  a  half  millions  of  interest.  The  population  of 
Egypt  is  much  less  than  ten  millions;  and  the  revenue  of 
this  very  poor  people  is  nine  or  ten  millions,  or  some  ;;^i  per 
head.  The  taxation  of  the  people  of  India  (and  we  are 
often  told  that  it  is  as  high  as  it  can  possibly  be  raised)  is 
about  4s.  per  head  —  that  of  the  Egyptian  fellah  about  five 
times  as  much.  Of  this  nine  millions  about  one-half  is  car- 
ried straight  out  of  the  country  to  pay  the  foreign  usurer, 
and  only  one-half  of  the  total  revenue  is  available  for  the 
administration  of  the  country  itself.  Imagine  your  own 
feelings,  if  you  had  to  send  every  year  some  forty  millions 
sterling  out  of  the  taxes  of  the  country  to  pay  Turkish,  or 
Arab,  or  Chinese  bond-holders;  and  then,  having  paid  that 
regularly,  that  you  had  to  keep  a  Turkish  pasha  and  a 
Chinese  mandarin  in  London  to  control  your  expenditure, 


192  NATIONAL  AISTD   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

SO  that  every  penny  of  the  Budget  had  to  get  the  sanction  of 
their  excellencies,  and  if  Mr.  Gladstone  or  any  other  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer  wished  to  put  on  or  take  ofif  a  tax, 
down  would  come  a  fleet  of  ironclads  from  the  Bosphorus  into 
the  Thames,  and  train  their  80-ton  guns  right  in  view  of  the 
Tower  and  Somerset  House.  That  is  the  state  of  Egypt 
now. 

Egypt  is  a  very  poor  and  a  shamefully  ill-governed  coun- 
try. The  fellah  or  peasant  of  the  Nile  is  one  of  the  poorest, 
the  most  patient,  ill-used,  the  most  hopeless  of  all  the  culti- 
vators of  the  soil  to  be  found  on  this  wide  earth  —  outside 
of  Ireland.  For  centuries  he  has  been  the  prey  of  oppressors 
and  tax-gatherers.  But  the  worst  exactions  of  his  native 
Mahometan  tax-gatherers  never  imposed  on  him  so  hopeless 
a  burden  as  the  cool,  scientific,  book-keeping  sort  of  spolia- 
tion of  his  European  civilisers.^ 

All  this,  be  it  remembered,  is  duly  settled  by  high  and 
mighty  treaties.  You  hear  much,  you  will  hear  more,  of 
these  international  engagements,  of  firmans,  and  treaties, 
and  obligations,  and  decrees,  and  what  not.  It  is  all  as  tight 
and  technical  as  international  lawyers  can  make  it,  just  as 
tight  and  legal  as  Mr.  Nickleby's  bill  transactions  with 
young  heirs.  The  Sultan  has  been  bullied,  and  coaxed,  and 
influenced.  The  Khedive  has  been  coaxed  and  warned. 
There  are  bipartite  treaties,  and  quadruple  treaties,  and  all 
sorts  of  grand  European  proceedings.  But  the  long  and 
the  short  of  it  is  this :  Europeans  having  encouraged  a 
profligate  and  unscrupulous  Turkish  Pasha,  the  late  Khedive, 
in  a  career  of  incredible  extravagance  and  folly,  have  forced 
another  profligate  and  unscrupulous  Turk  —  the  late  Sultan 

*  I  quite  admit  that  from  the  purely  material  point  of  view  much  of  this 
has  been  remedied  and  the  condition  of  the  fellah  has  been  immensely  im- 
proved—  but  with  corresponding  evils  (1908). 


EGYPT  193 

of  Constantinople  —  to  fling  over  the  first  old  scoundrel,  to 
bind  over  the  country  to  all  eternity  to  pay  his  scandalous 
debts,  to  set  up  a  nominee  and  agent  of  the  creditors  as  a 
new  ruler  of  the  country,  and  have  taken  the  practical  gov- 
ernment of  the  country  into  their  own  hands  in  order  to  make 
sure  that  the  interest  of  these  loans  shall  be  regularly  paid. 
The  same  thing  has  happened  in  Egypt  which  happens  in 
real  life.  The  spendthrift  heir  to  a  property  goes  to  the 
Jews  to  supply  his  extravagance  and  follies.  They  fool  him 
to  the  top  of  his  bent,  and  lend  him  any  sum  he  likes  at  any 
usurious  rate  they  can  compel  him  to  accept.  The  crash 
comes,  and  then  they  come  into  possession;  they  get  a 
receiver  of  his  property ;  and  they  squeeze  his  tenants  to  get 
their  interest. 

Well,  the  bond-holders  are  now  in  possession  of  Egypt; 
or  rather,  they  were  the  other  day,  till  they  beat  a  hasty 
retreat.  That  is  the  real  meaning  of  this  Egyptian  mystery. 
We  hear  a  great  deal  about  international  duties,  about  the 
Canal,  and  the  interest  of  England  in  her  Indian  Empire  ! 
All  that  is  idle  talk,  that  is  wide  of  the  true  facts.  It  is  quite 
true  that  the  Canal  is  a  matter  of  great  importance  to  Eng- 
lish commerce.  But  no  one  has  threatened  it.  The  Canal 
is  more  than  100  miles  from  Alexandria,  separated  by  50 
miles  of  impassable  and  uninhabited  desert  from  the  cul- 
tivable soil  of  Egypt.  But  does  it  follow,  that  because  we 
have  an  interest  to  sail  our  ships  freely  through  the  Canal, 
that  the  ruler  of  Egypt  is  to  be  our  mere  puppet  —  that  we 
are  to  undertake  the  moral  and  material  control  of  a  popula- 
tion of  five  millions  in  a  country  as  vast  as  France,  that  we 
are  to  establish  in  the  country  a  huge  national  debt,  a  huge 
army  of  foreign  officials  of  our  own ;  that  we  are  to  control 
the  Budget,  and  meddle  with  their  politics,  make  Ministries, 
and  dynasties,  and  unmake  them  when  we  don't  feel  quite 


194  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

satisfied  that  they  are  looking  after  our  money?  And  all 
this,  forsooth,  in  order  that  our  ships  may  sail  through  a 
canal  loo  miles  off ! 

Naturally  this  "spoiling"  of  the  Egyptians,  which  they 
now  call  "exploitation,"  this  control  and  dry-nursing,  roused 
native  hostility.  Strange  to  say,  the  Egyptians  grew  sulky 
at  so  much  civilisation.  The  1300  civilisers,  paid  ;^3 73,000 
per  annum  out  of  their  taxes,  seemed  a  little  overdone;  the 
60,000  Europeans  living  tax-free;  the  local  courts  of  alien 
law  and  foreign  judges;  the  4^  millions  (half  the  total  reve- 
nue) carried  off  to  foreign  bond-holders.  The  Mahometan 
population  conceived  what  is  called  a  "fanatical"  objection 
to  the  foreigners;  they  even  blasphemed  the  value  of  the 
civilisation ;  they  murmured  it  was  rather  too  dear,  and  they 
talked  about  a  Parliament.  For  some  time  the  head  of  this 
movement  was  in  the  native  army,  headed  by  a  native  gen- 
tleman, Arabi  Pasha.  A  Parliament  was  called,  and  soon 
began  a  struggle  between  the  Parliament,  the  Army,  the 
University,  and  the  native  leaders  on  the  one  side,  and  the 
Khedive,  some  of  his  official  world,  and  the  European  ring  of 
civilisers  on  the  other.  The  ring,  and  when  I  say  the  ring 
I  mean  the  1300  European  salaried  officers  of  the  Egyptian 
Government  and  their  belongings,  the  agents  of  the  banks, 
and  railways,  gas  works,  and  other  concessions  of  35  millions, 
and  the  European  population  which  had  planted  itself  in 
Egypt  —  the  ring,  I  say,  chose  to  treat  the  native  movement 
as  a  military  rebellion. 

For  months  the  Press,  the  Foreign  Offices,  and  political 
world  of  Europe  have  been  deluged  with  outcries  that  it  was 
all  the  work  of  mutinous  soldiers.  It  suited  the  ring  to  call 
a  national  movement,  provoked  by  their  meddling,  a  mutiny. 
Unhappily  our  public  representatives  took  side  against  the 
leaders;  they  misled  our  Foreign  Office;  they  openly  avowed 


EGYPT  195 

their  hostility  to  the  native  party.  The  English  representa- 
tives refused  to  recognise  its  chief,  and  plotted  his  downfall; 
and  to  fall  in  the  East  is  usually  to  be  killed  or  exiled.  It  is 
as  if,  in  the  struggle  in  France  in  1877  between  Gambetta 
and  the  Republican  party  and  Marshal  MacMahon  and  his 
Ministry,  Lord  Lyons  and  the  English  Embassy  had  entered 
into  the  struggle,  and  had  eagerly  stimulated  the  Marshal  to 
crush  the  Republic.  The  pretext  that  the  movement  was 
a  military  mutiny  is  a  wild  and  silly  calumny.  Events  have 
proved  it ;  the  strength  of  the  movement  is  not  military,  but 
civil.  It  lies  in  the  great  university  or  school  of  Cairo,  the 
intellectual  centre  of  the  Mussulman  world,  with  nearly 
20,000  members.  It  lies  in  the  intelligent  people  of  the  city 
and  the  headmen  of  the  villages.  Events  have  proved,  I 
say,  how  idle  is  this  cry  of  a  military  mutiny.  If  it  were  so, 
why  has  the  national  Parliament  placed  itself  in  the  front; 
why  is  it  that  we  are  told  that  Europeans  are  hardly  safe  in 
a  village,  whilst  the  whole  army  is  now  at  Alexandria  ?  Egypt 
is  not  the  first  nor  the  only  place  where  a  national  rising 
against  a  corrupt  monarchy  has  been  headed  and  represented 
by  soldiers. 

We  know  something  ourselves  about  political  colonels 
who  stood  up  by  the  cause  of  the  people.  But  military 
mutiny  or  not,  the  cause  of  Arabi  succeeded,  in  spite  of  the 
hostility,  the  intrigues,  and  the  threats  of  the  European 
Consuls  and  the  European  Controllers.  The  Khedive  did 
not  take  the  advice  of  the  English  Controller  and  did  not 
arrest  Arabi;  but  Arabi's  affection  for  the  Control  was,  of 
course,  not  increased  by  the  advice.  He  became,  however, 
the  leading  Minister  of  the  Khedive,  and  proceeded  to  carry 
out  a  number  of  changes  in  the  Egyptian  army  and  the 
Egyptian  finances.  Now,  I  am  not  concerned  to  argue  that 
Arabi's  measures  were  wise  or  good.     Perhaps  he  is  not  as 


196  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

admirable  a  War  Minister  as  Mr.  Childers,  or  as  consum- 
mate a  financier  as  Mr.  Gladstone.  But  he  was,  for  the 
time  being,  the  lawful  Minister  of  Egypt,  and  he  was  dealing 
with  the  details  of  Egyptian  administration.  Now  the  one 
thing  that  the  British  officials  in  Egypt  will  not  tolerate  is 
that  Egyptians  should  deal  with  the  details  of  Egyptian 
administration  in  any  way  but  what  the  officials  like.  Our 
Controller  in  Egypt  is  an  Indian  official.  He  is  paid  nearly 
;^4ooo  a  year  out  of  the  Egyptian  taxes  to  prevent  the  Egyp- 
tians from  spending  their  revenue  as  they  like.  The  English 
Controller,  I  say,  seems  to  look  upon  himself  as  the  resident 
at  an  Indian  Rajah's  Court  —  his  practical  tutor  and  master. 
There  are  three  of  these  separate  controls  in  Egypt,  and 
the  principal  Controller  seems  to  assume  the  position  of 
superintending  Providence.  To  such  lengths  does  this  med- 
dling go,  that  you  will  find  in  the  Blue-books  a  high  inter- 
national question  made  of  some  articles  in  the  native  papers. 
The  English  Envoy  demands  and  obtains  the  suppression  of 
two  native  journals  for  two  articles  set  out  in  the  Blue-book, 
which  simply  (and  I  think  very  reasonably)  express  the  irri- 
tation of  the  native  mind  at  the  European  exploitation  of 
their  country.  From  November  last  the  story  is  the  same 
—  the  Consuls  and  Controllers  interfering  in  every  detail  of 
government,  thwarting  the  formation  of  the  national  party, 
openly  instigating  the  Khedive  to  crush  Arabi,  intriguing 
with  his  pohtical  rivals,  and  seeking  to  destroy  the  influence 
of  the  Chamber.  The  part  taken  by  the  British  authorities 
in  Egypt  was  the  part  taken  in  France  in  1877,  by  the  reac- 
tionary Monarchic  and  Imperialist  parties,  to  crush  Gambetta 
and  the  Republic,  with  this  difference,  that  in  Egypt  it  was 
the  act  of  a  foreign  and  avowedly  friendly  Government.  At 
last  the  British  Government  took  that  fatal  step  of  sending 
a  powerful  fleet  to  Alexandria,  and  under  its  guns  demanding 


EGYPT  197 

by  an  ultimatum  the  dismissal  of  Arabi,  his  exile,  the  break- 
up of  his  party,  and  the  reconstitution  of  the  old  system  of 
nursing. 

Lord  Granville  was  warned  on  many  sides  that  this  would 
certainly  produce  a  dangerous  excitement;  you  will  find  in 
Blue-book  No.  7  that  Lord  Granville  was  informed,  and 
repeated  to  France,  "that  the  political  advantages  of  the 
demonstration  by  the  fleet  outweighed  the  danger  it  would 
cause  to  the  Europeans  in  Egypt."  The  fleet,  as  we  know, 
utterly  failed  to  effect  the  object  sought.  The  Egyptians 
were  not  cowed  by  it;  they  were  roused  to  fury  by  it.  I 
honour  the  Egyptian  people  that  they  were  capable  of  such 
manly  indignation.  Where  should  we  be  if  the  Czar  and  the 
French  Republic  sent  a  fleet  into  the  Thames,  and  in  front 
of  the  Tower  served  an  ultimatum  on  the  Queen,  to  send  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  Australia,  to  dismiss  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  to  restore  Lord  Salisbury,  with  a  French  and  Russian 
dry-nurse  to  control  him !  Well,  the  Egyptians  have  feelings, 
and  they  resented,  as  was  natural,  this  insolent  and  impotent 
menace.  What  followed  ?  The  Government  —  the  Gov- 
ernment of  Mr.  Gladstone  —  actually  went  to  the  Sultan 
of  Turkey  and  implored  him  to  send  an  official  armed  with 
his  Imperial  authority  to  crush  the  national  party  and  restore 
the  dry-nurse  system.  In  the  history  of  national  humiliation 
I  know  nothing  so  tragic  as  that  the  Government  of  Mr. 
Gladstone  should  go  on  its  knees  to  the  despot  at  Con- 
stantinople and  crush  out  the  rising  hopes  of  a  people  strug- 
gling into  some  kind  of  independence  and  life.  The  Gov- 
ernment well  knew  what  crushing  Arabi  meant.  To  crush 
a  national  leader  in  the  Sultan's  dominions  is  to  kill  him.  A 
man  was  chosen,  well  known  to  be  one  of  the  most  un- 
scrupulous ruffians  of  the  Pashas,  and  words  can  hardly  ex- 
ceed that !     They  were  warned  that  the  Pasha  sent  out  was 


198  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

at  once  treacherous,  reckless,  and  merciless.  The  Govern- 
ment wanted  Arabi  to  be  made  away  with !  Well,  he  was 
too  much  for  them  —  too  much  for  Dervish,  and  the  Sultan, 
and  the  Khedive,  and  the  British  and  French  fleets. 

We  all  know  what  followed.  The  Egyptian  army  and 
people  were  stung  to  frenzy  by  this  attempt  on  the  part  of 
their  foreign  creditors,  first  to  crush  a  legitimate  national 
movement  towards  representative  government,  by  cannon,  and 
then  the  attempt  to  crush  it  by  the  force  of  Sultan  and  Pasha. 
A  horrible,  savage,  and  most  abominable  massacre  resulted. 
I  am  not  about  to  defend  or  to  palliate  any  massacre;  and 
this  one  was  cruel  and  brutal  enough.  But  let  us  remember 
that  the  Italian  nation,  with  its  political  and  intellectual 
leaders,  with  Garibaldi  at  their  head,  have  just  been  cele- 
brating, six  hundred  years  after  the  event,  the  great  massacre 
of  the  French  in  Sicily,  known  as  the  Sicilian  Vespers.  That 
is  now  held  in  Italy  to  be  a  glorious  event.  Well,  I  do  not 
think  so.  But  I  say  that  the  massacre  in  Alexandria  on  the 
nth  inst.  was  not  unlike  the  massacre  of  the  Sicilian  Vespers, 
except  only  that  it  was  not  one-hundredth  part  so  bloody, 
and  that  it  had  the  additional  excuse  of  religious  fanaticism. 
I  deplore  the  innocent  blood  that  was  then  shed;  but  I  say 
that  the  British  Government  did  everything  that  men  could 
do  to  make  a  massacre  probable;  they  were  warned  that  a 
massacre  was  more  than  probable;  and  they  urged  the 
French  Government  to  go  on,  as  the  political  advantages  to 
be  gained  outweighed  the  risk  of  massacre. 

And  now  what  are  we  going  to  do?  30,000  or  40,000 
Europeans  have  left  the  country.  Perhaps  nearly  as  many 
remain.  The  Control  has  broken  down,  the  dry-nursing 
system  has  come  to  an  end.  There  let  it  stay.  Let  the 
Europeans  who  have  left  Egypt  stay  away.  If  they  have 
made  themselves  intolerable  to  the  Egyptian  people,  let  them 


EGYPT  199 

take  the  consequences.  If  they  have  sunk  their  money  in 
Egypt,  that  is  their  affair ;  if  they  have  gambled  in  Egyptian 
bonds,  I  cannot  say  I  particularly  pity  them.  But  the  system 
of  taking  into  our  hands  the  entire  administration  of  Egypt, 
receiving  its  taxes,  paying  ourselves  for  the  trouble  of  getting 
our  money,  nursing  the  native  government,  using  the  native 
ruler  as  our  mere  puppet,  treating  Egypt  in  fact  as  a  con- 
quered country,  has  broken  down.  I  am  glad  it  has.  It  was 
a  curse  to  Egypt,  to  the  world,  and  to  England.^  Our  Indian 
officials,  civil  and  military,  and  all  whom  they  influence,  and 
all  our  military,  and  half  our  civil  service,  have  come  to  think 
that  anything  which  is  convenient  for  India  is  right,  and 
just,  and  necessary.  Egypt  lies  on  the  road  to  India,  and 
so  Egypt  must  be  made  dependent,  nursed  if  need  be,  but 
also  annexed  and  conquered  if  need  be. 

I  am  coming  to  look  on  our  Indian  empire  as  one  of  the 
greatest  burdens  that  ever  befell  a  nation,  if  India  is  the 
eternal  excuse  for  every  injustice,  every  aggression,  and  any 
crime.  These  Indian  habits  and  ideas  have  corrupted  our 
soldiers,  our  officials,  our  Ministries,  our  Parliament.  Men 
who  rule  240  millions  think  another  10  millions  of  slaves  a 
mere  trifle.  They  get  to  look  on  all  Orientals  equally  as 
"niggers."  When  you  read  the  despatches  of  Sir  A.  Colvin, 
you  see  that  he  treats  the  Khedive  as  a  dependent  Rajah, 
and  Egypt  as  if  it  were  part  and  parcel  of  the  Indian  empire. 
Talk  to  these  Indian  soldiers  and  you  hear  them  say  that  of 
course  Egypt  lies  so  much  in  the  way,  that  one  day  we  must 
take  it  ourselves.  Others  talk  about  a  Sepoy  army  from 
Bombay  and  a  little  of  the  rough  and  ready  justice  of  Kabul. 
Are  they  quite  sure  that  a  native  army  of  Indians  can  be 

'  The  occupation  and  administration  of  Egypt  has  been  renewed,  under 
better  conditions,  but  the  inherent  evils  of  the  system  are  as  evil  as  ever  — 
as  dangerous  as  ever  (1908). 


200  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

trusted  to  fight  their  co-religionists  in  Egypt  ?  —  that  Arabi 
may  not  raise  the  flag  of  the  Prophet  in  a  way  that  may 
vibrate  through  Asia,  and  rouse  all  the  dormant  enthusiasm 
of  the  servants  of  Islam?  Are  they  quite  sure  that  Europe 
will  stand  by  and  see  Sepoys  in  possession  of  the  Nile  and  of 
Alexandria,  and  will  suffer  English  generals  to  hang  the  native 
officers  and  leaders  as  easily  as  we  hung  the  Afghan  officers 
and  leaders  at  Kabul? 

And  all  this  wild  and  criminal  bluster  is  supposed  to  be 
justified  by  the  one  word  —  the  Canal.  Well,  the  Canal  is 
not  a  British  river;  it  is  an  ocean  highway  open  to  the  world. 
The  covetous  rivalry  of  European  Powers  to  possess  Egypt 
existed  long  before  the  Canal  was  thought  of,  and  will  con- 
tinue, even  if  the  Canal  were  to  disappear.  When  Napoleon 
and  Pitt  fought  for  Egypt,  there  was  no  Canal,  and  Egypt 
was  not  even  the  road  to  India !  When  Palmerston  and 
Thiers  fought  the  old  Egyptian  question  in  Mehemet  All's 
time,  there  was  no  Canal.  The  French,  at  times,  have  been 
just  as  eager  to  dominate  Egypt  as  we  are,  and  so  have  the 
Italians  and  the  Russians,  and  yet  neither  Power  has  any 
especial  concern  with  the  Canal.  The  Canal  is  a  miserable 
excuse,  just  as  the  Bosphorus  was,  or  Cyprus  was  and  is ! 
The  Egyptian  people  live  miles  away  from  the  Canal;  the 
possession  of  Egypt  is  in  no  way  necessary  to  the  free  use  of 
the  Canal ;  and  a  series  of  bloody  struggles  for  the  possession 
of  Egypt  is  the  worst  and  most  costly  and  most  criminal  way 
to  secure  the  use  of  the  Canal.  How  miserable  a  pretext  it 
is  that  the  sole  object  is  to  secure  the  Canal  is  shown  by  this : 
When  Mr.  Gladstone  formally  defined  in  Parliament  the 
objects  of  the  Conference,  he  expressly  said  that  the  Canal 
was  not  one  of  them.  When  he  stated  the  ends  of  British 
policy,  he  said  nothing  about  the  Canal.  He  mentioned  three 
objects,  not  one  of  which  is  a  national  concern  of  ours,  and 


EGYPT  20I 

what  was  the  fourth  object  as  he  stated  then  ?  He  then  stated 
the  true  one  —  the  money  interest  of  certain  bondholders  and 
shareholders. 

It  is  a  miserable  fiction  to  tell  us  that  all  this  elaborate 
system  of  the  three  Controls,  the  international  tribunals,  and 
the  various  rights  under  the  firmans,  is  aimed  at  securing  the 
passage  of  English  ships  through  the  Canal.  It  is  a  system 
for  plundering  the  Egyptians,  for  riveting  on  them  the  chains 
of  that  debt-slavery  which  is  regarded  as  their  permanent 
and  natural  condition.  The  Greek  philosopher  thought  that 
all  non-Greeks  were  naturally  slaves;  and  so  the  British 
financier  looks  on  the  Egyptians  as  naturally  debt-slaves. 
The  firmans  and  decrees  and  treaties  which  have  been  wrung 
from  the  weakness  and  the  cupidity  of  Sultan  and  Khedive 
are  an  elaborate  system  for  handing  over  the  Egyptians  to 
their  European  creditors.  It  is  an  enormity  to  saddle  a 
wretched  body  of  peasants,  as  poor  as  any  Asiatics,  with  a 
nominal  debt  of  loo  millions,  nearly  as  much  as  the  whole 
debt  of  India  with  its  240  millions,  more  than  the  debt  of 
Prussia  and  many  of  the  rich  and  powerful  nations  of  Europe. 
It  is  an  enormity  to  tax  the  fellah  of  the  Nile  nearly  ;^i  per 
head,  the  taxation  of  the  Russian  people,  five  times  that  of 
the  Indian.  And  a  still  greater  enormity  to  carry  off  to 
Europe  half  of  the  entire  revenue  of  the  country. 

This  is  organised  plunder  and  extortion.  No  treaties,  or 
firmans,  or  decrees  can  make  it  just  or  reasonable  in  the  eyes 
of  morality.  Is  it  conceivable  that  this  country  can  be  about 
to  proceed  to  the  desperate  crime  of  attempting  by  war  to 
restore  this  apparatus  of  extortion  ?  What  is  it  to  the  people 
and  Government  of  this  country  that  a  dozen  banking  firms 
of  Paris  and  London,  and  their  clients,  should  lose  some  of 
that  money  which  they  recklessly  placed  at  usury?  Why  is 
it  that  the  blood  and  money  of  our  people  are  to  be  poured 


202  NATIONAL   AND    SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

out  in  order  to  maintain  the  speculators  who  have  farmed 
the  taxes  of  the  fellah,  and  the  officials  who  have  forced 
themselves  on  the  ruler  of  Egypt  ?  I  am  far  from  demanding 
repudiation  of  the  debt,  gigantic  as  it  is,  and  unscrupulous 
as  it  is  for  us  to  saddle  the  Egyptian  people  with  the  follies 
of  a  few  vicious  Turks.  I  do  not  ask  for  the  dismissal  of 
the  Europeans  whom  the  Egyptians  desire  to  retain  in  their 
service.  But  I  ask  that  this  nation  shall  leave  the  usurers 
and  the  Egyptian  people  to  settle  it.  I  protest  against  the 
iniquity  of  engaging  in  war,  jointly  with  European  Powers, 
or  making  the  Turk  our  agent,  or  singly  ourselves.  I  pro- 
test against  the  firing  one  shot  or  the  spending  one  penny  to 
restore  a  system  which  has  broken  down,  to  replace  Euro- 
peans who  have  run  away,  and  to  set  on  its  legs  again  the 
legalised  plunder  of  Egypt. 

It  is  no  business  of  ours  to  assist  speculators  in  getting  their 
7  per  cent  by  using  the  fiction  of  European  law  to  an  Oriental 
and  Mahometan  people.  We  have,  as  a  nation,  no  concern 
in  securing  the  salaries  of  a  crowd  of  adventurous  Europeans 
who  have  forced  themselves  into  good  berths  at  Alexandria 
and  Cairo.  The  air  is  full  of  grand  reasons  of  state.  We 
hear  of  international  treaties,  the  rivalry  of  nations,  and  the 
paramount  British  interest  of  India.  Thrust  these  solemn 
impostures  aside  even  when  they  are  repeated  with  a  grand 
air  by  that  new  convert  to  Jingoism,  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette. 
Whatever  there  may  be  in  these  things,  there  is  one  thing 
paramount  over  all  —  that  it  is  an  infamy  to  use  the  armed 
might  of  England  to  do  the  dirty  work  of  rings  of  financial 
speculators  and  adventurous  place-hunters.  It  would  be  an 
indelible  shame  on  us  to  crush  back  into  the  slavery  of  the 
other  subjects  of  the  Sultan  a  people  who  are  just  stirring 
towards  national  life  and  freedom.  I  cannot  believe  that  a 
statesman  so  keen  as  Lord  Granville  will  ever  commit  the 


EGYPT  203 

folly  of  reviving  that  system  of  nursing  Egypt  of  which  he 
has  himself  pointed  out  all  the  evils.  And  I  will  not  think 
that  a  Government  of  which  Mr.  Gladstone  is  the  chief  can 
be  about  to  enter  on  a  European  war  (for  it  may  mean  that) 
to  crush  out  in  blood  and  tyranny  a  weak  but  inoffensive 
people  for  the  sake  of  an  organised  and  cruel  system  of  un- 
scrupulous money-lending. 

Tell  them  that  their  own  eloquent  protests  against  Turkish 
misrule,  Russian  and  Austrian  misrule,  will  fall  back  on 
them  like  coals  of  fire  on  their  heads.  It  is  not  the  misrule 
of  the  Turks,  it  is  Englishmen  fighting  to  rivet  on  a  weak 
people  the  chains  of  a  debt-slavery.  For  my  part,  I  will  not 
believe  it.  It  would  be  too  dark  a  close  for  the  political  life 
of  Mr.  Gladstone.  For  my  part,  I  am  ready  to  leave  Egypt 
for  the  Egyptians.  It  would  be  monstrous  that  this  country 
should  be  dragged  into  the  attempted  conquest  of  a  difficult 
country  as  large  as  France  or  Germany  on  the  stale  and  taw- 
dry pretext  that  it  is  required  for  our  prestige.  Let  us  all 
appeal  from  the  Ministers  in  office  in  1882  to  those  same 
Ministers  in  opposition  in  1880.  Let  us  make  it  impossible 
ever  to  say  that  we  were  thrust  into  a  wanton  and  unjust 
shedding  of  blood  solely  because  our  Foreign  Office  had 
received  a  merited  rebuff  and  our  navy  had  been  paraded  in 
a  foolish  and  futile  menace. 


An  Appeal  to  Mr.  Gladstone 

{July  I,  1882) 

The  foregoing  Address  had  hardly  been  published  and  widely 
circulated  when  I  issued  an  open  letter  to  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, which  reached  him  just  before  the  bombardment 


204  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

oj  Alexandria y  the  ■prelude  to  the  iniquitous  conquest  of 
Egypt. 

I  reissue  it  after  twenty-six  years  have  passed,  because 
all  that  has  taken  place  since  justifies,  in  my  pinion,  the 
fears  I  then  expressed,  and  proves  the  soundness  of  the 
principles  I  then  maintained. 

In  spite  of  the  immense  improvement  in  the  material 
condition  of  Egypt  and  the  admirable  results  obtained  by 
the  eminent  statesmen  and  the  beneficent  institutions  that 
our  rule  has  established  on  the  whole  valley  of  the  Nile, 
the  inherent  evils  of  conquest  and  annexation  remai^i  and 
fester  in  that  land. 

I  repeat  these  protests  and  I  recall  these  principles  of 
international  morality  because  the  same  evil  courses  have 
been  constantly  followed  by  England  in  Burmah,  in 
Tibet,  in  China,  in  South  Africa,  as  well  as  by  Russia, 
Germany,  Italy,  and  most  conspicuously  are  still  being 
attempted  by  France  in  Morocco    {igo8). 

Sir  —  I  venture  respectfully  to  address  you  in  a  time 
of  crisis,  when  the  reputation  of  your  whole  life  is  at  stake 
—  and  not  merely  your  reputation  as  a  statesman,  but  as 
a  man.  Every  principle  that  moved  you  in  the  most  famous 
effort  of  your  political  career,  as  well  as  every  profession 
that  made  you  the  most  popular  Minister  of  this  century, 
now  draws  you  to  the  side  of  justice  and  peace.  You  are 
being  drawn  to  the  side  of  oppression  and  war  by  interests 
and  motives,  the  strength  of  which  I  make  no  attempt  to 
deny,  and  the  difficulty  of  resting  which  is  extraordinarily 
great. 

Almost  every  sentence  that  you  uttered  in  the  most  memor- 
able campaign  of  modern  politics  would  serve  my  turn,  if 
criticism  were  my  purpose.     But  I  have  too  deep  a  sense 


EGYPT 


205 


of  the  sincerity  of  those  noble  counsels  you  gave  to  the  nation 
but  two  years  ago,  to  charge  you  lightly  with  inconsistency; 
and  I  know  the  complications  of  the  crisis  too  well  to  look 
on  it  as  any  plain  and  clear  matter.  The  crisis  in  Egypt 
imposes  on  English  statesmen  a  dilemma  as  painful  as  ever 
harassed  a  Minister;  and  just  and  wise  men  of  the  same 
way  of  thinking,  we  know,  come  to  different  conclusions 
thereon.  I  shall  waste  no  time  in  quoting  from  your  speeches, 
nor  in  establishing  general  maxims.  The  question  for  us 
all  to-day  is  whether  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  Egypt 
justify  a  policy  which  you  have  taught  our  people  to  re- 
pudiate elsewhere.  Is  Egypt  a  real  exception  to  the  principle, 
that  British  interests  shall  be  no  pretext  for  international 
injustice  ? 

Here  a  compromise  with  principle  which  is  easy  to  many 
statesmen  is  not  possible  to  you.  The  passion  with  which 
you  exhorted  the  nation  to  throw  off  the  evil  system  of  the 
past  sprung  from  a  truly  religious  impulse  in  your  own  heart, 
a  loathing  for  wickedness,  a  spiritual  sense  of  moral  rather 
than  material  interests.  Having  lifted  up  your  voice  with 
a  power  over  the  people  that  has  never  been  equalled  by 
any  English  statesman,  and  with  a  religious  fervour  for 
right  which  is  hardly  ever  brought  into  politics,  you  cannot 
in  your  old  age  launch  the  nation  on  a  new  career  of  inter- 
national crime  without  covering  your  life  with  a  stain.  It 
would  be  not  so  much  a  mistake  in  policy  as  a  recantation 
of  faith. 

All  then  turns  on  the  issue,  whether  the  special  conditions 
of  Egypt  make  that  policy  a  duty  there  which  is  a  crime 
elsewhere ;  whether  the  theories  of  Lord  Beaconsfield  were 
wrong  rather  in  this,  that  they  were  applied  on  the  Danube 
instead  of  the  Nile.  As  a  general  principle  all  is  plain; 
as  a  matter  of  duty  your  own  position  is  notorious.     Men 


206  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

say,  and  some  of  those  whom  you  most  trust,  that  this  partic- 
ular case  is  a  pecuHar  exception;  that  the  real  condition 
is  not  the  apparent  one;  that  the  true  dangers  and  interests 
are  unknown  to  the  pubhc;  that  there  are  higher  interests 
even  than  right  and  good  faith ;  that  there  is  a  subtlety  about 
this  Egyptian  problem  which  is  lost  on  the  vulgar  mind. 
All  this  may  be  true ;  but  the  burden  of  proof  rests  on  those 
who  assert  the  exception;  and  it  will  require  all  your  skill, 
if  the  nation  is  not  to  feel  its  conscience  wounded  and  its 
self-respect  lowered  by  a  sudden  change  of  front  in  the  hour 
of  temptation. 

There  is  about  all  attempts  to  justify  aggression  in  Egypt 
that  same  vagueness  and  uncertainty  of  ground,  that  juggling 
with  reasons,  and  that  appeal  to  contradictory  motives 
which  we  have  heard  so  often  in  Turkey  or  Kabul,  the 
Greek  islands  and  Cyprus.  It  is  even  greater.  The  ad- 
vocates of  aggression  do  not  rely  steadily  on  any  one  of  these. 
India,  the  Empire,  British  interests,  commerce,  our  country- 
men in  personal  ganger,  English  capital  sunk  in  Africa,  the 
large  financial  interests  at  stake,  our  international  obliga- 
tions, the  harmony  of  Europe,  the  cause  of  good  govern- 
ment, the  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  the  amelioration  of 
the  lot  of  the  fellah,  the  jealousies  and  ambition  of  France, 
with  a  general  background  of  "civilisation,"  make  up  the 
shifting  reasons  for  the  one  solid  end,  which  is  —  military 
operations  on  Egyptian  soil.  It  is  the  old  story;  the  same 
grand  phrases  which  so  often  did  duty  on  the  Danube  and 
the  Bosphorus,  on  the  Vaal  and  the  Indus.  You  tore 
them,  sir,  into  shreds  and  patches  in  Mid-Lothian.  Can 
these  rags  now  obscure  your  sight? 

Grapple  with  any  one  of  these  reasons,  and  the  advocates 
of  war  straightway  fall  back  on  another.  If  we  deny  that 
the  Indian  Empire  involves  the  British  occupation  of  every 


EGYPT  207 

country  that  lies  in  the  way,  they  refer  us  to  the  financial 
interests  we  have  in  Egypt.  If  we  deny  that  it  is  the  business 
of  the  state  to  collect  debts,  we  are  told  that  it  is  not  the 
interest  of  the  bondholders  so  much  as  the  danger  of  French 
conquest.  When  we  say  that  France  is  clearly  opposed  to 
war,  then  we  have  rehearsed  to  us  the  story  of  British  capital 
invested  in  business,  civilisation,  and  the  poor  fellah.  These 
things  are,  some  of  them,  desirable  objects  enough,  but 
separated  by  a  gulf  from  any  connection  with  English  con- 
quest; or  they  are  private  matters  in  which  the  state  has 
no  concern;  or  they  are  mere  phrases  or  bugbears.  The 
people  who  affect  the  higher  politics  shake  their  heads, 
and  ask  if  we  have  heard  of  that  despatch.  There  is  the 
old  hollow  assumption  of  superior  information  and  fore- 
sight. "Serious"  politicians,  as  they  love  to  call  themselves, 
ask  us  volatile  persons  if  we  know  all  that  there  is  behind 
Tewfik,  Arabi,  and  Dervisch,  and  what  the  French  Consul 
is  aiming  at,  and  what  the  Intelligence  Department  has 
just  heard.  They  shuffle  these  objects  and  motives  back- 
wards and  forwards,  and  nimbly  avoid  a  real  probing  of 
any  one.  You,  sir,  have  shown  us  that  the  peace  and  good 
name  of  a  great  people  are  not  to  be  bemouthed  away  by 
diplomatic  brag.  When  you  tore  up  all  this  artificial  net- 
work of  injustice,  you  made  it  impossible  for  the  nation  to 
have  it  woven  again  under  its  eyes. 

It  cannot  escape  you  that  these  counsels  of  crime  are 
not  brought  to  us  by  pure  hands.  It  is  not  politicians  of 
wisdom  and  experience  who  call  for  the  establishment  of 
British  power  in  Egypt.  It  is  money-lenders  and  share- 
holders. There  are  in  England  and  in  France  groups  of 
very  rich  men  with  enormous  financial  interests  in  that 
country.  Four  millions  and  a  half  yearly  is  paid  to  them 
on  loans  alone.    They  have  further  invested  an  immense 


2o8  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

sum  —  as  much,  we  are  told,  as  thirty-five  millions  —  in 
works,  business,  and  adventures  on  Egyptian  soil.  There 
are  1353  Europeans  who  have  places  and  salaries  under  the 
Khedive.  The  Bourses  of  the  West  have  made  Cairo  and 
Alexandria  hunting-grounds  for  their  speculations.  Their 
class  owns  or  influences  half  the  Press  in  Europe.  It  in- 
fluences, and  sometimes  makes,  half  the  governments  of 
Europe.  Here  is  the  true  source  of  all  the  persistent  political 
intrigues  of  which  for  years  Egypt  has  been  the  field.  The 
ultimate  end  of  these  wealthy  persons  is  a  perfectly  legiti- 
mate one:  it  is  the  increase  of  their  own  fortunes.  But 
this  is  not  an  end  which  concerns  the  state.  And  all  the 
lofty  reasons  of  state  which  they  inspire  in  the  Press,  and 
impose  upon  diplomatists,  are  deeply  tainted  at  their  core 
by  the  fact  that  the  root  of  them  is  the  desire  of  rich  men 
to  become  richer.  I  suspect  imposing  political  schemes 
and  imperial  interests  which  rest  on  an  obvious  financial 
purpose. 

The  oldest  and  most  imposing  of  the  political  reasons  for 
armed  intervention  in  Egypt  is  the  fear  that  some  other 
Power  is  likely  to  occupy  it  before  us.  In  other  words  we 
are  to  seize  Egypt  in  order  to  forestall  France.  That  is  one 
of  the  shallow  traditions  of  a  school  of  diplomatic  quidnuncs. 
It  still  has  its  charms  for  the  editors  of  thoughtful  journals. 
Such  a  policy  in  itself  is  neither  wise  nor  honourable;  but 
it  is  needless  now  to  discuss  it.  There  exists  at  this  moment 
not  the  slightest  ground  to  justify  the  suspicion  that  France 
has  any  such  design.  Now,  indeed,  less  than  ever.  The 
evidence  of  the  Blue-books  is  all  the  other  way.  England 
for  months  has  been  pushing  on  France  to  consent  to  inter- 
vention. And  the  argument,  if  argument  it  can  be  called, 
drops  to  the  ground  by  the  force  of  events.  On  the  contrary, 
the   mutual   jealousies   of   France   and   England   in   Egypt 


EGYPT  209 

are  a  very  strong  reason  for  not  interfering.  Whilst  it  is 
certain  that  France  will  make  no  advance  there  if  we  do 
not,  it  is  far  from  clear  that  we  should  not  find  her  ultimately 
waiting  to  dispute  our  conquest.  An  expedition  to  Egypt 
means  in  the  long  run  war  with  France.  Is  that  to  be  the 
crown  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  political  life  ?  ^ 

Again  we  hear  of  international  duties,  treaties,  and  settle- 
ments in  which  "Europe"  is  interested.  But  events  have 
disposed  of  this  as  completely  as  they  have  of  the  supposed 
designs  of  France.  The  settlements  have  settled  nothing; 
and  "Europe"  is  at  liberty,  and  is  perfectly  willing,  to  make 
any  settlement  de  novo.  These  settlements  and  treaties 
were  never  real  settlements  in  any  political  sense.  They 
were  concessions  wrung  by  England  and  France  from  two 
Eastern  governments,  in  order  to  secure  for  our  people 
the  utmost  possible  advantage  in  their  private  and  financial 
adventures;  and  in  order  to  place  the  internal  system  of 
Egypt  at  their  entire  disposal.  The  scheme  has  proved 
not  workable;  it  has  broken  to  pieces.  Are  you,  sir,  about 
to  restore  it  at  the  price  of  a  formidable  and  guilty  war  for 
the  sake  of  the  persons  interested?  The  pretended  inter- 
national and  European  nature  of  the  settlement  was  always 
a  figment.  It  was  a  mere  financial  expedient  which  has 
brought  anarchy  into  Egypt,  ruin  on  the  speculators,  and 
infinite  anxiety  to  the  governments  of  Europe. 

Now  we  hear  of  the  anarchy  in  Egypt,  and  the  paramount 
duty  of  suppressing  it.  Can  anything  be  more  certain  than 
that  the  anarchy  (such  as  it  is)  is  the  direct  work  of  the  allied 
fleets?  The  fleets  at  Alexandria  made  the  anarchy.  With- 
draw the  fleets  and  it  will  cease.  The  "anarchy,"  as  it  is 
called,  that  is,  the  irritation  of  certain  classes  in  Egypt  with 
the  government  of  the  Khedive,  has  been  steadily  growing 

'  At  Fashoda  in  1898  we  came  within  measurable  distance  of  it  (1908). 
p 


2IO  NATIONAL   AND  SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

for  years.  It  is  the  obvious  consequence  of  any  attempt 
to  govern  under  the  pressure  of  foreign  dictation,  supported 
by  continual  menace  of  foreign  intervention.  It  is  easy 
to  produce  anarchy,  riot,  and  massacre,  in  any  Eastern  state 
—  or  indeed  in  many  Western  states.  Send  the  fleets  to 
the  Bosphorus  and  dehver  an  uhimatum  to  the  Suhan; 
you  will  see  a  very  lively  outburst  of  fanaticism.  Or  try 
the  same  at  Tangiers,  or  at  Athens,  or  Zanzibar.  You 
can  always  produce  anarchy  anywhere  by  goading  a  people 
to  frenzy  where  any  spark  of  courage  and  independence 
is  left  them.  The  great  aggressive  empires  always  begin 
by  producing  anarchy  in  regions  which  they  intend  to  annex. 
France  did  this  but  the  other  day  in  Tunis.  Anarchy  was 
the  pretext  for  invasion  in  the  Transvaal  and  in  Afghanis- 
tan. You,  sir,  have  shown  us  that  the  way  to  restore  order 
there  was  to  withdraw  the  menace. 

As  to  the  lives  and  property  of  our  countrymen,  it  is  your 
duty  to  protect  them  in  all  things  right  and  reasonable. 
But  it  is  plain  why  they  are  in  danger;  and  plain  how  to 
relieve  them.  They  never  were  in  any  risk  whatever  till 
a  long  course  of  foreign  dictation  culminated  in  an  act  of 
armed  menace.  Their  safety  will  be  secured  by  withdraw- 
ing the  fleet,  as  its  presence  produced  their  danger.  There 
is  no  more  reason  to  suppose  that  (apart  from  foreign  dicta- 
tion) the  lives  and  property  of  Englishmen  will  be  less  safe 
in  Egypt  than  in  Turkey  or  any  other  part  of  the  East. 
If  our  countrymen  choose  to  carry  their  wealth  and  their 
skill  to  distant  lands,  they  must  do  so  at  their  own  risk. 
If  they  behave  so  as  to  rouse  the  hostility  of  the  population, 
that  is  their  fault  and  they  must  answer  for  it.  It  is  a  mon- 
strous assumption  that  this  nation  is  to  be  responsible  for 
all  their  adventures;  and  must  straightway  annex  any 
country  where  their  claims  to  domineer  are  thwarted  or 


EGYPT  211 

disliked.  Our  adventurous  people  thrust  themselves  and 
their  business  into  every  country  in  the  globe,  civilised 
and  uncivilised.  The  sense  that  the  poM^er  of  England 
is  behind  them  makes  them  reck  little  of  forbearance,  good 
faith,  or  conciliation.  They  assume  the  rights  of  conquerors, 
knowing  that  in  the  long  run  they  can  always  force  the  state 
into  conquest.  To  yield  to  their  claims  on  the  state  is  to 
increase  their  confidence  and  stimulate  their  demands. 
Such  a  pohcy  indeed  can  have  but  one  issue.  It  would 
lead  us  to  universal  dominion,  a  result  too  preposterous  to 
contemplate. 

We  hear  much  sonorous  talk  about  "civilisation,"  the 
condition  of  the  fellah,  the  suppression  of  the  slave-trade, 
and  the  "Western  institutions"  which  we  have  planted  in 
Egypt.  Excellent  objects  no  doubt;  but  what  have  these 
to  do  with  eighty-ton  guns,  a  fleet  of  ironclads.  Sepoys,  an 
armed  occupation,  and  virtual  annexation?  These  laudable 
purposes  would  be  equally  good  reasons  for  annexing  Syria, 
or  Asia  Minor,  or  indeed  any  other  country  in  Asia  or  Africa. 
If  these  great  blessings  are  to  be  poured  out  from  our  cannon, 
let  our  missionary  fleets  and  armies  tour  round  the  world 
dispensing  the  gospel  of  civilisation.  To  bring  them  for- 
ward as  grounds  for  a  war  in  Egypt  is  a  shallow  and  shame- 
less pretext,  which  no  one  would  ever  have  heard  of,  had 
there  not  been  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  or  so  of  Western 
gold  trembling  for  its  dividends  and  interest. 

Turn  it  which  way  we  will,  it  comes  back  always  to  this 
—  that  we  are  to  go  to  war  really  for  the  money  interests 
of  certain  rich  men  in  London  and  Paris.  It  is  no  doubt 
of  great  importance  to  them  to  get  their  four  and  a  half 
millions  regularly  out  of  the  taxes  of  Egypt.  It  is  a  great 
convenience  to  them  to  be  exempt  from  taxes,  to  have  virtual 
control   of  the   internal   government,   to   have   concessions, 


212  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

business,  companies,  works,  and  the  rest,  to  have  their  own 
courts,  their  own  law,  and  their  own  judges,  to  hold  a  crowd 
of  offices  in  the  Egyptian  service,  to  be  a  dominant  caste 
in  a  foreign  land.  All  this  is  very  desirable  to  the  persons 
themselves.  But  it  is  no  concern  of  this  country  to  guarantee 
them  these  profits,  privileges,  and  places.  It  would  be 
blood-guilt  in  this  country  to  enforce  these  guarantees  at 
the  cost  of  war.  The  interests  of  these  rich  and  adventurous 
persons  are  not  British  interests ;  but  the  interests  of  certain 
British  subjects.  And  between  their  interests  and  war 
and  conquest,  domination  and  annexation  —  how  vast  is 
the  gulf !  Does  it  necessarily  follow  that,  because  certain 
Englishmen  hold  large  sums  in  Unified  bonds,  and  because 
they  have  invested  much  capital  in  Egyptian  works,  that 
Europeans  are  to  be  guaranteed  as  a  dominant  caste;  and 
that,  if  the  Egyptian  people  make  any  effort  to  displace  one 
rivet  of  the  dominion,  there  is  instant  appeal  to  war,  ending 
in  virtual  conquest  ? 

Our  people  have  large  interests  in  the  debts  of  America, 
of  Italy,  of  Turkey,  of  Greece,  of  Spain.  Much  British  cap- 
ital is  embarked  in  all  of  these  countries.  Is  that  a  ground, 
under  any  conceivable  circumstances,  for  securing  our 
people  a  local  domination,  to  be  followed  by  conquest  if 
this  foreign  dominion  be  not  patiently  borne?  Most  of 
the  conditions  present  in  Egypt  exist  in  a  degree  in  Turkey 
and  even  in  Spain.  There  too  our  people  are  owed  enormous 
sums ;  there  too  is  a  mass  of  British  capital  sunk  in  industrial 
and  commercial  ventures;  there  is  very  often  anarchy  in 
Turkey  as  well  as  in  Spain;  and  there  would  be  anarchy 
again  the  moment  we  sent  a  fleet  to  produce  it.  There  is 
a  great  deal  of  barbarism  there,  and  a  fanatical  and  idle 
population.  But  the  man  would  be  a  madman  who  pre- 
tended that  these   conditions  in   Spain  or  Turkey  led  us 


EGYPT  213 

logically  to  enforce  the  claims  of  these  creditors  by  war,  and 
ultimately  to  conquer  these  countries. 

There  is,  indeed,  but  one  plausible  ground  after  all  for 
armed  intervention  in  Egypt,  and  that  is  a  ground  which 
you,  sir,  have  torn  to  pieces.  It  is  the  old  windbag  cry  of 
the  Empire  in  danger.  Is  it  possible  that  in  your  lifetime 
and  in  your  ministry,  this  phantom  is  again  to  rear  its 
head !  Your  whole  political  life  is  pledged  to  the  principle 
that  "Empire"  is  no  justification  of  national  injustice. 
You  have  told  us  that  no  doctrine  can  be  more  criminal 
than  this:  that  a  nation  has  a  right  to  oppress,  whenever  it 
becomes  convenient.  What,  then,  is  the  syllogism  that 
leads  us  irresistibly  from  the  safety  of  the  Empire  to  the 
conquest  of  Egypt?  The  safety  of  the  Empire  seems  to 
demand  any  achievement  that  can  enter  into  the  visions  of 
ambitious  and  restless  men.  Hot-headed  soldiers  and 
hare-brained  viceroys  swore  that  the  Empire  was  not  safe, 
till  our  ensign  floated  at  Kabul,  Candahar,  and  Herat;  as 
they  will  tell  us  to-morrow  it  must  float  at  Baghdad,  or 
Pekin.  Sir  Bartle  Frere  thought  the  sun  of  England  was 
set  whilst  Cetewayo  lived  and  reigned  in  Zululand.  The 
theories  of  a  military  expert  about  the  Empire  are  indeed 
as  wild  as  those  of  a  German  philologist,  and  as  anti-social 
as  those  of  a  Russian  Nihilist.  It  is  the  part  of  a  states- 
man to  treat  these  ravings  as  we  treat  the  barkings  of  chained 
mastiffs.  And  of  all  living  statesmen,  it  is  especially  your 
part  to  put  them  away  from  the  counsels  of  the  state. 

When  the  windbag  pretext  of  Empire  is  pricked,  the  one 
residuum  is  the  Canal.  No  one  denies  that  the  Canal  is  of 
great  importance  to  his  country,  on  political  as  well  as 
commercial  grounds.  That  importance,  as  a  highway  to 
India,  has  been  much  exaggerated.  But  granting  its  im- 
portance to  be  real,  to  what  extravagant  conclusions  is  the 


214  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

Canal  supposed  to  lead !  Reasonable  military  and  inter- 
national precautions  against  any  interruption  of  the  water- 
way would  be  approved  by  public  opinion  in  Europe,  as 
much  as  it  would  at  home.  Is  there  the  least  reason  to 
suppose  they  would  not  be  accepted  in  Egypt  ?  It  is  a  long 
chain  of  hypotheses  indeed  which  leads  from  the  Canal 
to  the  conquest  of  Egypt.  The  freedom  of  a  watercourse 
less  than  one  hundred  miles  long  through  an  uninhabited 
desert  does  duty  for  the  annexation  of  a  country  fifty  or  one 
hundred  miles  away,  larger  than  France,  with  a  population 
of  ten  millions,  and  two  of  the  greatest  cities  of  the    East. 

The  logical  sorites  is  this.  The  passage  through  the 
Canal  is  of  vital  interest  to  England.  But  the  use  of  it 
implies  that  England  should  dominate  throughout  Egyptian 
territory.  Now,  this  domination  implies  that  Englishmen 
should  be  free  from  the  local  taxes,  the  jurisdiction,  and 
the  government.  But  they  cannot  be  really  free  without 
they  possess  the  virtual  control  of  the  whole  internal  policy 
of  Egypt.  Yet,  if  this  control  is  interfered  with,  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  British  Government  to  secure  it  to  them  by  force. 
Again,  if  this  force  is  not  at  once  successful,  the  virtual 
annexation  of  the  country  must  follow.  But  the  virtual 
annexation  of  the  country  means  an  enormous  burden  on 
our  already  overgrown  Empire ;  and  it  will  almost  certainly 
lead  to  a  war  with  one  or  more  of  the  Powers  of  Europe. 
Hence,  to  be  sure  of  a  free  passage  through  the  Canal,  war 
and  conquest  in  Egypt  are  a  logical  necessity.  Q.  E.  D. 
What  is  this  but  the  old  story  that  the  Indian  Empire  would 
not  be  safe,  unless  Christian  women  could  be  freely  ravished 
on  the  Danube;  and  that  the  occupation  of  Cyprus  would 
shower  steam-ploughs  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  Asia  Minor? 

We  look,  sir,  to  you  to  distinguish  the  rational  and  legiti- 


EGYPT  215 

mate  interests  of  the  state  from  the  personal  interests  of 
private  EngUshmen,  and  the  fantastic  projects  of  poKtical 
dreamers.  The  only  interest  of  the  nation  in  Egypt  is  this, 
that  the  Canal  shall  not  be  closed  against  us,  and  that  no 
European  ri\al  shall  found  an  Empire  on  the  Nile.  There 
is  at  this  moment  no  reasonable  ground  to  fear  either  of 
these  evils.  But  what  measures  may  be  necessary,  by 
force  of  arms  or  international  agreements,  to  guard  against 
either,  will  not  be  refused  by  any  party  in  this  country. 
The  passage  of  the  Canal  could  never  be  guaranteed  in 
any  absolute  sense,  even  if  it  were  incorporated  in  the  Empire  : 
it  would  still  be  liable  to  treacherous  destruction  or  obstruc- 
tion, even  if  it  were  in  the  Punjab  or  in  Ireland.  What 
a  farce  then  to  tell  us  that  its  existence  is  secured  by  meddling 
with  the  promotion  of  Egyptian  officers,  by  suppressing 
native  newspapers  at  Alexandria,  and  denying  the  right  of 
a  National  Chamber  to  add  £300,000  to  the  Budget !  To 
pretend  that  the  freedom  of  the  Canal  requires  the  recon- 
stitution  of  the  status  quo  by  armed  intervention  is  like 
saying,  as  our  grandfathers  said,  that  commerce  would  not 
be  free  in  the  English  Channel  till  we  had  suppressed  the 
Republic  in  France.  In  other  words,  and  you,  sir,  will 
not  deny  the  position:  the  Canal  is  not  worth  the  evils  of 
conquering  Egypt,  even  if  conquest  were  the  sole  means  of 
securing  it.  M.  Lesseps  tells  us,  as  common  sense  told  us 
before,  that  the  real  danger  to  the  Canal  lies  in  the  dread 
of  an  English  invasion  and  conquest. 

The  settlement  of  Egypt  on  some  tolerable  basis  that 
may  promise  stability  and  order  is  no  doubt  a  British  inter- 
est of  a  very  real  kind.  And  the  nation  will  welcome  any 
solution  that  the  counsels  of  Europe  can  devise  —  without 
war  and  without  oppression.  But  two  things  are  certain: 
the  Control  and  the  status  quo  have  utterly  failed,  and  any 


2l6         NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

settlement  to  be  forced  on  the  Egyptian  people  by  war  and 
invasion  is  doomed  to  failure  as  well.  The  status  quo  has 
done  some  good;  but  it  had  the  incurable  vice  of  being  the 
domination  of  an  alien  caste,  directed  to  secure  their  per- 
sonal interests,  resting  on  intrigue  and  menace,  but  not  on 
acceptance  and  not  on  force.  The  ascendancy  of  a  foreign 
race,  even  where  they  have  much  to  offer  to  the  natives, 
and  even  where  the  natives  are  so  far  behind  them  in  wealth 
and  knowledge,  cannot  be  permanently  secured  without  con- 
quest ;  and  it  must  be  maintained  by  a  protracted  struggle 
for  supremacy.  If  that  ascendancy  is  to  be  secured  under 
new  forms  and  after  a  bloody  contest,  it  will  be  the  occasion 
of  a  series  of  rebellions  and  wars.  We  repudiate,  as  equally 
wild  and  criminal,  the  burdening  this  country  with  a  British 
Algeria  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile.^ 

It  was  not  for  an  English  ministry  wantonly  to  destroy 
the  Control  and  the  so-called  settlement  of  Egypt,  so  long 
as  it  seemed  to  be  working,  and  apart  from  a  general 
revolution.  But  the  Control  and  the  settlement  altogether 
being  swept  away  in  the  crash,  it  is  a  duty  to  review  the 
situation  afresh  and  to  seek  some  new  solution.  No  diplo- 
matic grandiloquence,  no  international  treaties,  no  firmans 
or  decrees,  can  obscure  the  fact  —  that  the  effect  of  the 
settlement  was  to  make  the  Khedive  the  manifest  tool  of 
his  foreign  patrons,  to  secure  to  foreign  Powers  the  practical 
administration  of  the  country,  to  maintain  the  sixty  thousand 
Europeans  in  Egypt  in  the  privileges  of  a  dominant  caste, 
to  place  the  offices  of  the  country  mainly  in  their  hands, 
to  offer  unlimited  opportunities  for  Western  enterprise,  to 
revolutionise  the  life  of  the  country  in  the  interest  of  Western 
capitalists,  and  finally  and  mainly,  to  secure  the  punctual 

'Therein  lies  the  present,  continuous,  and  indestructible  "unrest"  in 
Egypt,  which  will  one  day  become  an  intolerable  evil  (1908). 


EGYPT  217 

payment  for  ever  to  Western  creditors  of  about  one-half 
of  the  entire  revenue  of  the  nation. 

To  saddle  the  fellahs  of  the  Nile  for  all  time  with  a  debt 
of  more  than  one  hundred  millions,  more  than  the  debt  of 
Prussia,  is  an  international  crime  which  no  treaties  can 
gloze  over  and  no  imperial  interests  can  excuse.  To  carry- 
off  year  by  year  half  the  revenue  of  a  poor  country  to  pay 
to  foreigners  for  their  usurious  and  fraudulent  loans,  forced 
on  a  half -lunatic  despot,  is  a  mere  financial  juggle;  and 
nothing  can  make  its  maintenance  worthy  of  a  just  nation, 
though  its  settlement  was  effected  by  right  honourables, 
ambassadors,  and  European  treaties.  One  need  not  deny 
that  some  temporary  relief  has  been  given  to  the  native; 
or  that  the  money  of  Europe  has  afforded  some  material 
improvements.  But  the  reduction  of  a  population  of  ten 
millions  to  a  systematic  debt-slavery,  enforced  from  time 
to  time  by  war,  is  dearly  bought  by  the  partial  introduction 
of  Western  law,  railways,  and  gas-works.  And  "civilisa- 
tion," as  it  is  understood  by  syndicates  of  bankers  and 
concessionaires,  is  not  worth  the  bloody  and  fraudulent 
crushing  down  of  an  Eastern  people  under  the  insolent 
dominion  of  a  motley  tribe,  alien  in  race,  religion,  and 
habit. 

Sir,  a  great  occasion  is  now  yours:  to  find  some  tolera- 
ble settlement  of  the  Egyptian  imbroglio,  without  war  and 
without  international  oppression.  The  talk  we  hear  about 
imperial  interests  and  British  rights  is  a  flimsy  varnish,  as 
we  see,  to  cover  the  lust  of  conquest  and  the  thirst  for  gold. 
It  is  idle  to  discuss  whether  Arabi  Pachi  represents  a  national 
or  a  military  movement.  It  is  certain  that  the  domination 
of  Egypt  cannot  be  secured  to  England  without  a  desul- 
tory war  with  the  natives  first,  and  a  possible  war  with  Eu- 
rope afterwards.     The  permanent  exploitation  of  Egypt  by 


2l8  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

Western  speculators  and  adventurers  is  an  object  which  it 
is  worthy  of  your  career  formally  to  repudiate  as  a  national 
concern.  It  will  avail  your  good  name  hereafter  but  little, 
that  you  raised  your  voice  against  the  persecution  of  the 
Christians  in  Turkey,  if  one  of  the  last  acts  of  your  official 
life  shall  have  been  to  rivet  on  one  province  of  that  Empire 
a  debt-slavery  to  their  Christian  masters.  There  is  one 
consideration  I  omit;  for  it  would  be  an  insult  to  you  and 
your  colleagues.  I  will  not  conceive  it  possible  that  you 
can  be  about  to  commit  this  people  entrusted  to  your  care 
to  the  crime  and  risk  of  a  new  conquest,  simply  because 
the  official  policy  of  the  past  has  led  to  a  disaster  which  you 
and  they  from  the  first  foresaw. 
July  I,  1882. 


IX 

THE  BOER  WAR 

{December  1899) 

The  Boer  War  raised  so  many  of  the  questions  treated  in 
previous  sections,  and  illustrated  so  clearly  the  evils  of 
vicious  policy  abroad,  that  it  is  impossible  altogether  to 
omit  notice  of  it.  Nor  can  it  be  charged  that  my  friends 
or  myself  failed  to  assert  the  same  principles  for  which 
we  had  contended  for  a  whole  generation.  We  formed 
associations,  held  meetings,  published  addresses  and 
pamphlets,  and  for  four  years  sought  to  bring  our  fellow- 
citizens  to  reasonable  views.  I  now  issue  a  few  extracts 
from  various  speeches  and  writings  of  my  own  during 
that  dismal  period. 

It  is  a  satisfaction  to  know  that  the  chaos  and  desolation 
caused  in  South  Africa  by  that  cruel  folly  are  being 
slowly  cured,  and  that  an  era  of  peace  and  progress  may 
be  looked  for  on  lines  so  different  from  those  anticipated 
by  the  misguided  authors  of  the  War.     As  I  write,  the 
three  chief  states  in  South  Africa  are  being  directed  by 
men  who  in  arms  or  in  council  were  the  most  eminent 
leaders  of  the  Boer  defence.     And  their  wise  and  generous 
efforts   promise   a   settlement   harmonious   and   prosper- 
ous —  noiv  that  our  country  has  wasted  £250,000,000 
and  20,000  lives  —  in  the  vain  attempt  to  conquer  and 
enthral  a  free  people  {1Q08). 

219 


220  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

The  foundation  of  Rhodesia  and  the  mihtant  phase  of 
the  Chartered  Company  caused  deep  alarm  in  the  Transvaal 
and  its  neighbour.  The  two  Boer  Repubhcs  which  had 
trekked  forth,  fought,  and  suffered  in  order  to  be  free  of 
British  dominion,  now  found  themselves  engulfed  by  the 
Empire  —  North,  South,  East,  and  West  —  finally  shut 
out  from  the  Northern  wilderness,  and  girt  on  North  and 
West  by  British  powers,  all  controlled  by  the  great  "Empire- 
builder,"  who  openly  aimed  at  bringing  South  Africa,  from 
the  Zambesi  to  the  Cape,  under  the  Union  Jack.  If  from 
that  hour  the  Boers  did  not  strain  every  nerve  to  prepare 
to  defend  their  freedom,  they  would  have  deserved  to  lose 
it  without  a  blow. 

But  the  Transvaal  soon  found  its  independence  menaced 
by  a  new  force.  In  1886,  it  was  discovered  that  most  valu- 
able gold-fields  existed  in  the  Transvaal,  and  miners  and 
gold  agencies  poured  in.  Wealth,  far  more  vast  than  that 
of  the  diamond  fields,  as  spread  over  a  larger  area,  a  far 
larger  outland  population,  greater  fortunes  and  bigger  com- 
panies arose.  In  eleven  years  Johannesburg  became,  not 
only  the  wealthiest,  the  most  modern,  but  the  largest  town 
in  South  Africa.  The  annual  output  of  gold  rose  to  about 
twelve  millions.  The  expenditure  of  the  state  rose  from 
£114,000  to  between  four  and  five  millions.  The  Out- 
lander  male  population  began  to  exceed  that  of  burghers. 
The  old  President  believed  that  the  Outlanders  were  about 
to  swamp  the  Boers.  As  they  pressed  for  political  power 
the  Transvaal  narrowed  its  terms,  until  at  last  an  immense 
body  of  aliens  —  a  majority,  far  the  wealthiest  and  most 
cultivated  —  found  itself  in  the  grasp  of  a  jealous,  obstinate, 
unfriendly,  unyielding  government,  which  regarded  them 
as  in  a  state  of  permanent  conspiracy  to  displace  it.  And 
this,  no  doubt,  was  quite  true. 


THE   BOER   WAR  221 

This  is  not  the  place  or  time  to  rehearse  the  trite  story 
of  Outlander  grievances  and  Boer  misrule.  I  have  come 
here  to  state  historic  facts,  not  to  plead  the  Boer  case  or  to 
excuse  or  justify  Boer  policy.  I  am  quite  willing  to  believe 
that  much  of  it  was  unjust  as  well  as  unwise.  I  do  not 
doubt  that  the  railway  and  mining  and  dynamite  monopo- 
lies were  oppressive,  that  their  Protective  tariff  almost 
outdid  that  of  President  M'Kmley;  that  the  education  of 
English  children  was  neglected,  as  indeed  it  is  in  France ; 
that  the  municipal  government  of  the  Rand  was  as  bad 
as  it  is  in  Spain;  that  the  Chamber  was  open  to  bribes, 
as  it  is  said  to  be  in  the  United  States.  All  this  and  more 
may  be  true,  but,  as  Mr,  Bryce  justly  insists,  it  gave  no 
legitimate  ground  for  war. 

And  on  the  top  of  this  race  antipathy,  of  these  bitter 
memories,  of  these  incessant  menaces,  of  these  well-grounded 
fears,  came  the  Raid;  organised  by  the  Prime  Minister 
of  a  great  British  colony,  carried  out  by  the  armed  forces 
raised  under  Royal  Charter,  and  led  by  men  of  rank  in  the 
Queen's  service.  Of  this  Raid,  wherein,  as  Mr.  Lecky 
says,  a  Privy  Councillor  and  servant  of  the  Crown  organised 
a  conspiracy  to  overthrow  the  Government  of  a  friendly 
state,  deceiving  the  High  Commissioner,  his  own  colleagues 
in  the  Ministry,  and  the  great  companies  for  which  he  was 
the  principal  trustee,  I  will  not  here  speak.  The  Colonial 
Secretary  told  Parliament  that  all  this  was  "a  mistake," 
but  that  the  author  of  it  "had  done  nothing  dishonourable." 
Mr.  Rhodes  admitted  that  he  had  upset  the  apple-cart; 
and  gracefully  retired  from  the  scene  uncondemned. 

He  ceased  to  be  Prime  Minister,  but  he  continued  to  build 
Empire,  to  menace  the  independence  of  the  Boers,  to  labour 
for  colouring  South  Africa  pink  in  spite  of  Boer,  in  spite 
of  a  parliamentary  majority   in  Cape  Colony,  at  the  cost 


222  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

of  our  good  name  and  welfare  in  the  United  Kingdom. 
Mr.  Cecil  Rhodes  is,  after  all,  only  one,  no  doubt  the  greatest, 
but  the  type  of  groups  of  keen,  ambitious,  reckless  men 
who  have  forced  us  into  war  —  a  war  wherein  the  whole 
Empire  is  now  being  strained  to  its  roots  in  order  to  crush 
some  50,000  herdsmen,  whose  ancestors  for  a  whole  century 
have  struggled  to  be  free  from  British  grip.  If  I  felt  free 
to  speak  my  whole  mind,  I  should  speak  of  it  as  a  new 
Imperial  Raid,  carried  out  in  the  name  of  our  Queen,  under 
the  instigation  of  a  combination  of  trading  syndicates.  It 
would  take  us  too  far  to  consider  the  justice  or  morality  of 
these  raids,  whether  Chartered  or  Imperial,  and  we  might 
be  told  that  all  this  was  "unctuous  rectitude."  Rectitude 
of  any  kind,  it  seems,  has  gone  out  of  fashion.  But  I  am 
old-fashioned  enough  to  prefer  it  to  unctuous  turpitude. 
And  I  prefer  the  name  of  a  just,  peaceful,  and  righteous 
England  to  that  of  an  Empire  scrambling  for  half  a  con- 
tinent at  the  bidding  and  in  the  interest  of  cosmopolitan 
gamblers  and  speculative  companies,  in  search  of  bigger 
dividends  and  higher  premiums. 


THE  STATE  OF  SIEGE 

(1901) 

The  lawless  proceedings  of  civil  and  military  authorities  in 
South  Africa,  in  colonies  in  which  neither  war  nor 
rebellion  existed,  called  out  strong  protests  from  lawyers 
and  politicians.  But  the  incredible  defiance  of  law  and 
precedent  by  the  Government  at  home  and  the  House  of 
Lords  raised  the  indignation  to  a  point  which  I  sought  to 
express  in  the  following  statement. 

The  course  then  followed  by  Ministers  and  the  Court 
of  Appeal  shook  to  its  foundations  the  system  of  Consti- 
tutional law  as  understood  in  England  for  tiuo  centuries 
and  a  half.  I  am  prepared  to  substantiate  every  proposi- 
tion of  law  here  laid  down,  and  I  challenge  any  competent 
lawyer  to  displace  them,  writing  with  his  own  name, 
citing  precedents  of  authority  {igo8). 

"The  State  of  Siege,"  as  understood  in  some  foreign 
countries,  and  as  it  is  embodied  in  the  constitution  of  France, 
is  a  thing  unknown  to  the  British  constitution  and  abhorrent 
to  the  principles  and  traditions  of  EngHsh  law.  If  the 
Empire  has  come  to  that  pass  that  its  welfare  demands 
our  submitting  to  such  an  anomaly,  a  change  so  tremendous 
should  be  expressly  adopted  by  the  nation  and  sanctioned 
by  Parliament.  To  foist  it  upon  us  out  of  a  few  vague 
legal  dicta,  and  the  loose  assertions  of  Ministers  and  journal- 

223 


224  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

ists,  would  be  treason  to  the  noble  history  of  English  justice 
and  English  faith  in  law  and  freedom. 

The  question  at  stake  to-day  —  whether  or  not  the  Ex- 
ecutive of  this  country  can  at  will  impose  "the  State  of 
Siege"  without  control  of  civil  courts,  and  without  being 
responsible  to  law  ?  —  is  a  far  bigger  and  more  critical 
matter  than  any  incidental  breach  of  a  particular  law.  It 
is  not  even  the  abrogation  of  a  constitutional  privilege, 
however  important.  It  is  the  collapse  of  the  whole  edifice 
of  constitutional  law  as  understood  since  the  Revolution 
which  swept  away  the  Stuarts.  If,  at  any  moment,  the 
Executive,  without  the  assent  or  knowledge  of  parliament, 
can  declare  itself  despotic,  and  can  suspend  and  defy  the 
entire  body  of  civil  law,  and  never  be  liable  to  give  any 
account  in  a  civil  court  of  justice  —  then  we  have  gone  back 
two  or  three  centuries  to  the  times  of  Stuart  and  Tudor 
absolutism,  and  even  worse ;  for  the  whole  fabric  of  the 
constitution,  built  up  by  a  long  succession  of  parliamentary 
and  judicial  acts,  is  shaken  down  to  its  roots. 

The  levity  and  the  apathy  with  which  this  formidable 
change  in  the  position  of  every  citizen  has  been  ignored 
can  only  be  explained  by  general  ignorance  of  law  and  the 
passions  roused  by  the  war.  There  is  too  much  readiness 
to  give  any  licence  to  those  who  are  fighting  the  Boers,  and 
to  approve  any  weapon  that  can  be  used  against  them  and 
their  Afrikander  kindred.  But  this  is  suicidal  folly.  In 
flinging  overboard  in  a  time  of  pressure  the  central  principles 
of  British  law,  we  are  sacrificing  the  best  achievements  of 
our  own  ancestors  and  preparing  a  novel  bondage  for  our 
own  descendants. 

Our  civil  rights  are  matters  of  general  principle,  which 
may  be  insidiously  undermined  by  casual  precedents.  Eng- 
lish law  is  of  that  kind  that,  if  you  play  fast  and  loose  with 


"'^'  THE   STATE   OF  SIEGE  225 

it,  it  vanishes.  Defy  the  principles  of  liberty  under  the 
law,  and  there  will  soon  be  no  principles  remaining  at  all. 
There  is  but  one  constitutional  law  for  all  subjects  of  the 
Crown,  where  not  specially  modified  by  local  charter  or  Act 
of  Parliament.  Every  citizen  withm  the  Empire,  of  what- 
ever race,  is  imperilled  by  the  breach  of  constitutional  right 
in  any  part  of  it.  What  is  done  in  a  colony  to-day  may 
be  done  in  Ireland  to-morrow,  and  in  England  hereafter. 
If  the  government  of  the  Cape  may  "declare  the  State  of 
Siege,"  assume  the  powers  of  Czar  and  Sultan,  and  defy 
any  court  of  law  at  home  or  abroad  to  question  it,  it  may 
be  the  turn  of  Canada  or  Australia  next  —  presently  of 
Ireland  —  and  a  future  Joseph  Chamberlain  may  have 
another  Morley  or  Harcourt  condemned  and  executed  at 
Aldershot  by  a  captain  of  horse  and  two  lieutenants  of 
yeomanry. 

"Martial  Law,"  unless  it  means  "military  law,"  — a  for- 
mal code  of  rules  dealing  only  with  the  army  and  navy,  and 
never  applicable  to  civilians  at  all  —  or  unless  it  means 
"warlike  operations"  and  "military  violence,"  is  a  mere 
nickname  or  slang.  The  idea  that  the  "proclamation  of 
Martial  Law"  is  equivalent  to  the  "declaration  of  the  State 
of  Siege"  under  the  code  of  the  French  Republic,  that  it 
gives  any  legal  authority  to  the  civil  and  military  servants 
of  the  Crown  to  exercise  arbitrary  acts  of  punishment  and 
restraint  of  civilians,  such  as  they  do  not  possess  under  the 
law  —  all  this  is  a  vulgar  error.  Martial  Law  gives  no  fresh 
legal  right.  It  is  merely  notice  that  the  armed  forces  of  the 
Crown  are  about  to  take  those  measures  as  to  persons  and 
property  within  defined  limits  which  are  directly  necessary 
to  repel  invasion  and  to  suppress  open  rebellion.  To  pretend 
that  this  mere  "proclamation"  confers  a  legal  immunity  on 
the  Crown  and  its  agents  to  suspend  law,  to  abrogate  civil 
Q 


226  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

rights,  to  assume  despotic  authority  in  general  administra- 
tion of  the  country  —  is  a  wild  sophism.  To  admit  such  a 
right  would  land  us  in  such  a  state  of  society  as  when  the 
state  was  seized  by  some  Italian  Podesta  or  some  old  Greek 
"tyrant." 

The  rights  and  duties  of  the  servants  of  the  Crown,  when 
order  is  so  far  disturbed  by  invasion,  riot,  or  civil  war,  that 
soldiers  have  to  act  in  a  military  way,  are  perfectly  clear  and 
reasonable.  It  is  their  duty  to  meet  force  by  force,  to  kill, 
seize,  arrest,  and  hold  all  who  oppose  them,  and  all  who 
interfere  with  their  own  operations  of  war.  Their  acts  of 
violence  are  justifiable  whilst  they  concern  direct  operations 
of  war,  military  offences,  open  resistance  or  interference  with 
any  act  of  war.  Such  acts  to  be  justifiable  must  be  both 
temporary  and  local ;  limited  in  time  to  a  period  when  inva- 
sion, rebellion,  or  disorder  openly  exist,  and  limited  in  space 
to  the  places  where  such  disorder  and  war  actually  are  found. 
When  invasion  and  rebellion  are  crushed,  and  in  places  where 
they  do  not  exist,  the  pretended  "Martial  Law"  gives  no 
servant  of  the  Crown,  civil  or  military,  any  legal  right  to  do 
anything  he  could  not  do  under  the  ordinary  law,  no  right 
to  administer  any  district  arbitrarily,  no  right  to  inflict  any 
punishment  on  a  civilian.  Every  man,  from  Commander- 
in-Chief  down  to  a  private,  from  Viceroy  down  to  a  police- 
man, remains  liable  to  be  tried  by  a  jury  for  any  act  done 
outside  law  during  war  or  rebellion,  and  he  is  criminally 
liable  to  punishment  for  any  illegal  act  committed  when  war 
or  rebellion  have  ceased  to  exist,  and  in  places  where  they 
have  been  suppressed.  This  being  so,  many  scores  of  judi- 
cial murders  have  been  committed  by  soldiers  in  South 
Africa,  and  hundreds,  of  sentences  passed  on  civilians  are 
not  only  invalid  in  law,  but  expose  those  pretending  to 
exercise  them  to  criminal  process. 


THE   STATE   OF   SIEGE  227 

This  is  the  certain  law  of  England,  laid  down  for  centuries 
by  great  lawyers,  and  established  by  a  series  of  statutes  and 
judgments.  It  has  of  late  years  been  repeated  by  such 
authorities  as  Chief  Justice  Cockburn,  Lord  Blackburn, 
Mr.  Justice  Stephen,  Professor  Dicey,  and  almost  every  jurist 
who  has  treated  constitutional  law.  Professor  Dicey  was 
merely  repeating  accepted  maxims  when  he  said  in  his  Law 
of  the  Constitution,  3rd  edition,  1889,  p.  265 :  — 

"Martial  Law"  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  in  which  it  means 
the  suspension  of  ordinary  law  and  the  temporary  government  of 
a  country  or  parts  of  it  by  mihtary  tribunals,  is  unlcnown  to  the  law 
of  England.  We  have  nothing  equivalent  to  what  in  France  is  called 
the  "Declaration  of  the  State  of  Siege,"  under  which  the  authority 
ordinarily  vested  in  the  Civil  power  for  the  maintenance  of  order  and 
power  passes  entirely  to  the  army. 

...  .  .  •  •  • 

"It  is  also  clear  that  a  soldier,  as  such,  has  no  exemption  from  liability 
to  the  law  for  his  conduct  in  restoring  order." 

"This  kind  of  martial  law  [state  of  siege  as  understood  in  France] 
is  in  England  utterly  unknown  to  the  Constitution.  Soldiers  may 
suppress  a  riot  as  they  may  resist  an  invasion,  they  may  fight  rebels 
just  as  they  may  fight  foreign  enemies,  but  they  have  no  right  under 
the  law  to  inflict  punishment  for  riot  or  rebellion  .  .  .  any  execution 
(independently  of  military  law)  inflicted  by  a  Court  Martial  is  illegal, 
and  technically  murder." 

To  the  same  effect  writes  Mr.  Justice  Stephen  in  his 
History  of  the  Criminal  Law,  vol.  i.,  pp.  207-216.  He,  like 
every  lawyer,  agrees  that  the  officers  of  the  Crown  are  jus- 
tified in  any  exertion  of  physical  force  to  suppress  insurrec- 
tion and  restore  order ;  but  they  remain  civilly  or  criminally 
liable  for  any  excess,  and  are  not  justified  in  inflicting  pun- 
ishment after  resistance  is  suppressed,  and  after  the  ordinary 
courts  of  justice  can  be  reopened. 

This  view  was  affirmed  by  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  Cock- 
burn  in  his  charge  to  the  Grand  Jury  in  Reg.  v.  Nelson  and 
Brand  (1867).  He  shows  that  the  common  law  is  the  in- 
heritance of  all  subjects  of  the  realm ;  that  in  settled  colonies 


228  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

with  responsible  government,  the  constitutional  rights  and 
statutes  of  Englishmen  obtain.  He  quotes  Lord  Chief 
Justice  Hale  that  civilians  could  never  be  tried  by  martial 
law.  He  quotes  Coke  "that  a  rebel  may  be  slain  in  the 
rebellion ;  but,  if  he  be  taken,  he  cannot  be  put  to  death  by 
the  martial  law."  And  he  quotes  Lord  Chief  Justice  Rolle, 
who  said :  —  "If  a  subject  be  taken  in  rebellion,  and  be  not 
slain  at  the  time  of  his  rebellion,  he  is  to  be  tried  by  the  com- 
mon law."  Lord  Loughborough,  afterwards  Lord  Chan- 
cellor, said  {Grant  v.  Gould,  1792):  — 

Martial  law,  such  as  it  is  described  by  Hale,  and  such  as  it  is  marked 
by  Mr.  Justice  Blackstone,  does  not  exist  in  England  at  all.  Where 
martial  law  is  established  and  prevails  in  any  country,  it  is  of  a  totally 
different  nature  from  that  which  is  inaccurately  called  martial  law, 
merely  because  the  decision  is  by  court  martial,  but  which  bears  no 
affinity  to  that  which  was  formerly  attempted  to  be  exercised  in  this 
Kingdom ;  which  was  contrary  to  the  Constitution,  and  which  has  been 
for  a  century  totally  exploded. 

It  was  thought  that  Lord  Blackburn  did  not  entirely  adopt 
the  language  of  Chief  Justice  Cockburn.  What  difference 
of  opinion  there  was  turned  on  minor  points.  On  the  main 
question,  he  said  (Reg.  v.  Eyre,  1868) :  — 

Even  if  an  officer's  illegal  act  was  the  salvation  of  the  country,  that, 
though  it  might  be  a  good  ground  for  the  legislature  afterwards  passing 
an  Act  of  Indemnity,  would  be  no  bar  in  law  to  a  criminal  prosecution. 
.  .  .  The  mere  fact  of  good  intention,  or  even  the  benefit  that  may 
have  been  done,  would  not  be  a  bar  to  a  criminal  indictment. 

He  held  that  in  a  settled  colony  the  settlers  carry  the  law 
of  England  with  them.  He  held  that  the  Petition  of  Right 
which  prohibited  resort  to  Martial  Law  in  time  of  peace  did 
not  sanction  it  specifically,  even  in  time  of  war.  He  held 
that  the  Governor  who  kept  up  Martial  Law  for  thirty  days 
after  the  end  of  an  insurrection  did  wrong.  And  in  arresting 
and  sending  a  prisoner  out  of  a  district  where  civil  law  was 


THE    STATE   OF   SIEGE  229 

in  force  into  a  district  under  the  rule  of  soldiers,  the  gov- 
ernor "committed  a  grave  and  lawless  act  of  tyranny  and 
oppression." 

Now,  all  these  things,  for  ages  declared  illegal,  have  been 
done  in  South  Africa.  The  rule  of  the  sword  has  been  main- 
tained, not  for  days,  but  for  years,  in  districts  where  no 
fighting  exists,  where  the  civil  courts  are  open.  Civilians 
have  been  seized,  imprisoned,  sentenced  by  soldiers  without 
warrant.  They  have  been  carried  off  into  districts  where 
civil  law  is  not  acting.  British  subjects  have  been  tried, 
condemned,  and  executed  for  treason  and  rebellion,  by 
troops  without  any  pretence  of  military  codes;  and  this  is 
murder.  Coke  said,  "  If  a  lieutenant  execute  any  man  by 
colour  of  'martial  law'  this  is  murder,  for  it  is  against  Magna 
Charta."  In  the  rebelhon  in  Canada,  in  1838,  Lord  Camp- 
bell and  Lord  Cranworth,  then  Attorney  and  Solicitor-Gen- 
eral, advised  the  Government  that  when  the  regular  courts 
were  open,  there  is  no  power  in  the  Crown  to  proceed  by 
military  courts.  A  long  succession  of  legal  authorities,  down 
from  the  Civil  Wars,  have  established  these  principles :  — 

1.  "Martial  law,"  as  meaning  the  continuous  govern- 
ment of  any  district  within  British  dominions  by  military 
persons  or  tribunals,  is  unknown  to  our  law. 

2.  It  is  the  duty  of  all  in  the  service  of  the  Crown  to  repel 
invasion,  crush  rebellion  and  treason  by  arms,  and  to  execute 
all  necessary  operations  of  war.  Rebels  may  be  killed  in  fight, 
and  all  who  are  assisting  rebels  or  invaders  may  be  arrested. 

3.  It  is  illegal  for  soldiers  to  try  or  punish  civilians  for 
offences  triable  by  civil  courts  when  civil  courts  are  open. 

4.  Every  official  remains  liable  to  trial  for  every  breach  of 
law  against  the  person  or  property  of  a  civilian  subject,  even 
if  taken  in  arms,  and  a  fortiori  of  one  who  has  taken  no  part 
in  the  war. 


23© 


NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 


5.  Such  an  official  has  a  good  defence,  if  his  act  can  be 
proved  to  be  a  direct  incident  of  actual  war;  but  of  this  a 
civil  magistrate  and  jury  are  the  judges. 

6.  Nothing  but  an  Act  of  the  Legislature  can  withdraw 
from  a  civil  court  the  cognisance  of  offences  committed  by 
soldiers  against  civilian  subjects  of  the  Crown. 

These  principles  have  been  flagrantly  defied  in  South 
Africa  ever  since  1900;  though  since  1689  there  has  been  no 
attempt  to  set  up  martial  law  as  a  system  in  England,  even 
during  the  Jacobite  rebellions  and  Scotch  invasions;  nor 
could  any  lawyer  have  doubted  that  to  set  up  martial  law, 
so  as  to  suspend  all  civil  rights  without  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment, was  illegal  and  criminal.  Suddenly,  by  a  bolt  out  of 
the  blue,  the  Privy  Council,  under  the  lead  of  the  Lord  Chan- 
cellor, himself  one  of  the  Ministers  charged  with  illegal 
action,  assumed  the  power  to  tear  up  these  settled  maxims  of 
the  constitution.  He  induced  the  Court  to  refuse  full  trial 
of  the  petition  of  a  civilian,  who,  without  due  proof  of  any 
act  of  assisting  rebels,  had  been  seized  in  a  district  where 
order  had  not  been  disturbed,  where  law  courts  were  regu- 
larly sitting,  and  who  has  been  kept  in  a  military  prison 
untried  for  seven  months. 

The  obiter  dicta  of  the  Lord  Chancellor  at  the  hearing  were 
a  surprise  to  the  Bar,  recalling  a  Chancellor  m  comic  opera 
not  the  "keeper  of  the  King's  conscience."  He  cited  the 
trial  by  Military  Court  of  a  naval  officer,  as  if  that  applied 
to  the  case  of  a  civilian.  He  "protested"  against  a  dictum 
of  Lord  Coke.  He  professed  to  think  little  of  Chief  Justice 
Cockburn,  and  set  small  store  by  the  case  of  Wolfe  Tone,  in 
Ireland  in  1798,  on  which  all  the  judges  and  all  the  text- 
books have  uniformly  insisted  as  a  decisive  and  leading  case. 
He  tried  to  distinguish  the  case  of  "foreign  invasion"  from 
that  of  "rebellion"  and  "civil  war."    There  is  no  authority 


THE   STATE   OF   SIEGE  23 1 

whatever  for  this  distinction  so  far  as  "the  State  of  Siege" 
or  "martial  law"  is  concerned.  On  the  contrary,  the  case 
of  Wolfe  Tone  was  itself  a  striking  instance  of  war  and  foreign 
invasion  and  rebellion  together.  War  was  indeed  "raging" 
in  Ireland  in  1798-9.  Finally,  the  bald  and  weak  judgment, 
as  after  six  weeks'  incubation  it  was  delivered  in  writing, 
takes  no  note  of  the  mass  of  decisions  and  authorities  which 
it  defies,  but  professes  to  rest  this  vast  revolution  in  the  civil 
status  of  all  British  subjects  on  an  obscure  appeal  from  an 
Indian  court  in  18 17,  a  case  which  turned  on  the  conquest  of 
a  foreign  realm,  during  a  state  of  war,  and  on  the  claim  to 
money  of  a  subject  of  an  Eastern  despot  —  a  case  which  no 
more  concerned  the  constitutional  right  to  liberty  of  a  civil- 
ian British  citizen  in  a  time  of  peace  than  do  the  proceedings 
in  Rex  v.  Bishop  Gore. 

The  case  of  Elphinstone  v.  Bedreechund  (I.  Knapp,  316) 
was  the  case  on  which  the  Lord  Chancellor  relied  for  revers- 
ing Coke,  Hale,  Blackstone,  Campbell,  Cranworth,  Cock- 
burn,  Blackburn,  and  a  host  of  text-writers  and  com- 
mentators. The  case  does  not  seem  to  have  been  even 
mentioned  in  argument,  and,  indeed, "  it  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  case,"  as  the  Lord  High  Executioner  puts  it  in  the  Mikado. 
In  nine  bare  lines  the  judgment  in  that  Indian  case  decides 
that  what  soldiers  take  as  prizes  of  war  from  a  foreign  enemy, 
during  war  in  an  enemy's  country,  cannot  be  recovered  by  an 
agent  of  the  foreign  despot  in  a  civil  action  during  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  war.  What  has  this  to  do  with  the  right  of 
a  civilian  British  subject,  in  a  district  where  peace  reigns  and 
civil  courts  are  at  work,  to  be  free  from  arrest  and  imprison- 
ment by  soldiers  without  warrant  or  authority  by  statute  ? 

There  seems  to  be  a  strange  confusion  of  thought  in  those 
who  now  argue  about  salus  reipiiUicae  suprema  lex  —  "the 
prerogative  of  the  Crown  to  assert  peace  and  order" — or 


232  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

the  necessity  for  illegal  action  "whilst  war  is  raging/'  It  is, 
no  doubt,  the  duty  of  the  Crown  and  its  servants  to  take  all 
or  any  measures  necessary  to  preserve  the  existence  of  the 
state.  This  necessity  would  justify  them  if  charged  with 
unlawful  action.  But  it  does  not  make  their  unlawful 
action  legal.  Nor  does  it  withdraw  that  action  (what- 
ever it  may  have  been)  from  the  purview  of  a  civil  court 
hereafter.  The  Government  have  occasionally  in  a  panic 
authorised  a  breach  of  the  Bank  Act.  But  such  breach 
was  not  a  legal  act,  nor  was  it  withdrawn,  before  any 
indemnity  statute  was  passed,  from  review  in  a  court  of  law. 
It  was  a  thing  outside  law,  without  sanction  of  law,  advisedly 
committed  at  peril,  though  excusable  on  adequate  justifica- 
tion when  challenged  in  law.  The  captain  of  a  ship  might 
put  in  irons  or  kill  any  of  his  officers  or  crew  whom  he  sus- 
pected of  plotting  mutiny.  He  might  run  his  ship  ashore 
and  blow  it  up  to  prevent  its  falling  into  an  enemy's  hands. 
But  it  is  no  part  of  the  articles  of  war  for  a  captain  to  kill  his 
own  men,  or  to  destroy  his  own  ship.  These  acts  are  not 
legal,  nor  can  necessity  make  them  legal,  nor  withdraw  them 
from  cognisance  of  a  proper  tribunal.  They  remain  utterly 
illegal,  but  excusable  on  adequate  proof  of  necessity.  The 
acts  of  Government  in  breach  of  law  may  be  morally  and 
politically  right,  and  legally  excusable.  But  they  always  re- 
main lawless,  utterly  unprovided  for  in  law,  and  always 
open  to  consideration  by  courts  of  law.  If  not,  it  is  always 
open  to  a  Government  to  declare  itself  despotic  —  as  Louis 
Napoleon  did,  or  as  a  Spanish  dictator  in  America  does. 

The  gravity  of  the  present  occasion  consists  in  this  — 
that  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  our  country  since  the 
Great  Charter  the  violent  assumption  of  arbitrary  power  has 
been  declared  by  a  court  of  law  to  be  legal  —  or  at  least  not 
open  to  question  by  any  court  of  law  —  those  who  seize  the 


THE    STATE    OF   SIEGE  233 

arbitrary  power  being  declared  to  be  the  sole  judges  of  the 
rights  they  exercise.  If  so,  it  is  open  to  Lord  Roberts  to 
make  a  pronunciamento  in  front  of  the  Horse  Guards  and 
declare  this  country  to  be  a  military  empire  in  "a  State  of 
Siege."  The  Lord  Chancellor,  if  sitting  in  court,  would 
have  to  hold:  "Lord  Roberts  declares  that  'war  is  raging' ; 
and  we  lawyers  have  nothing  more  to  say."  Nothing  that 
was  done  by  Strafford  or  Cromwell,  by  Laud  or  Jeffreys, 
went  as  far  as  this.  The  public  takes  it  quietly,  because  it 
is  done  to  Afrikanders  at  the  Cape,  and  they  trust  it  may  help 
Kitchener  to  end  the  war.  All  this  is  a  delusion.  It  is  done 
to  English  subjects,  and  cuts  into  the  roots  of  our  constitu- 
tion.    It  is  a  menace  to  the  peace  of  our  own  country. 

This  question  is  indeed  the  most  vital  and  sweeping  in  the 
whole  range  of  public  law,  for  it  concerns  the  very  existence 
of  law  itself,  not  of  any  particular  right.  It  is  the  question 
whether  England  is  a  country  of  constitutional  law,  or  a 
country  in  which  the  Executive  of  the  hour  can  outlaw  the 
nation,  and  place  itself  above  law.  If  this  new  claim  of  out- 
landish autocracy  is  admitted  — 

'Twill  be  recorded  for  a  precedent, 

And  many  an  error  by  the  same  example 

Will  rush  into  the  state. 

There  is  but  one  public  law,  where  not  specially  modified, 
for  all  the  Britons.  All  Britons  enjoy  the  same  constitu- 
tional right  which  is  one  and  indivisible.  And  the  founda- 
tions of  this  right  disappear  if,  when  it  is  necessary  anywhere 
to  appeal  to  the  sword,  the  only  rule  is  to  be  —  inter  arma 
silent  leges  —  nay,  too,  silet  jus  —  silent  jurisconsulti.  No 
lawyer  doubts  that  in  extreme  peril  and  confusion  the  ser- 
vants of  the  Crown  are  bound  to  take  all  measures  to  save 
the  state  and  protect  their  sovereign.     But  to  tell  us  that 


234  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

soldiers  are  to  be  the  sole  judges  of  the  necessity,  of  the  con- 
ditions and  limits  of  their  powers,  are  never  to  be  account- 
able to  any  civil  tribunal,  are  to  be  vi^hat  the  King  is,  i.e. 
"can  do  no  wrong,"  and  are  judge,  jury,  counsel,  and  wit- 
nesses in  their  own  case ;  this  is  enough  to  make  Coke,  Hale, 
Blackstone,  and  Mansfield  turn  in  their  graves. 

During  the  Gordon  riots  Lord  Chancellor  Thurlow  said :  — 

But  the  King,  any  more  than  a  private  person,  could  not  supersede 
the  law,  nor  act  contrary  to  it,  and,  therefore,  he  was  bound  to  take 
care  that  the  means  he  used  for  putting  an  end  to  the  rebelHon  and 
insurrection  were  legal  and  constitutional,  and  the  miUtary  employed 
for  that  purpose  were  every  one  of  them  amenable  to  the  law,  because 
no  word  of  command  from  their  particular  officer,  no  direction  from 
the  War  Office,  or  Order  of  Council  could  warrant  or  sanction  their 
acting  illegally  ...  all  persons  of  all  descriptions  being  equally  ame- 
nable to  the  laws  of  the  land,  and  answerable  to  them  for  their  conduct 
on  every  occasion. 

In  his  judgment  in  the  leading  case  of  Fahrigas  v.  Mostyn, 
Lord  Mansfield  thus  laid  down  the  law  as  to  the  liability  of 
a  colonial  governor :  — 

To  lay  down  in  an  English  court  of  justice  such  monstrous  propo- 
sitions as  that  a  governor  acting  by  virtue  of  letters  patent  under 
the  great  seal  can  do  as  he  pleases;  that  he  is  accountable  only  to  God 
and  his  own  conscience  —  and  to  maintain  here  that  every  governor 
in  every  place  can  act  absolutely;  that  he  may  spoil,  plunder,  affect 
their  bodies  and  their  Hberty,  and  is  accountable  to  nobody  —  is  a 
doctrine  not  to  be  maintained;  for,  if  he  be  not  accountable  in  this 
court,  he  is  accountable  nowhere. 

Now,  if  the  "State  of  Siege"  is  an  exotic  of  despotism,  un- 
known to  English  law,  the  "proclamation  of  Martial  Law" 
gives  no  new  rights  to  governor  or  commander;  but  both 
soldier  and  civilian  remain  accountable  for  their  acts  in  civil 
courts  —  wherever  such  are  in  regular  sessions. 

No  one  denies,  be  it  said  again,  that  the  extra-legal  acts 
of  violence,  taken  in  an  emergency  and  the  storm  of  war, 
may  prove  to  be  justifiable  by  circumstances  and  even 
striking  instances  of  patriotic  duty.     But  nothing  can  make 


THE    STATE   OF   SIEGE  235 

them  legal  in  themselves,  nor  make  the  authors  of  such  illegal 
acts  the  sole  judges  of  the  necessity,  and  for  ever  unaccount- 
able to  justice.  The  sinister  evil  of  to-day  is,  not  so  much 
that  lawless  acts  of  violence  are  being  done,  not  that  so  many 
public  speakers  and  writers  approve  of  their  being  done.  It 
is  that  the  Government  of  the  King,  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Appeal,  and  the  first  law  officer  of  the  realm,  dare  to  tell  us 
that  law  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter  at  all. 

Hitherto,  it  has  been  regarded  as  undoubted  law  that 
neither  the  Crown  nor  its  officials  can  lawfully  "suspend" 
law,  or  "dispense  with"  laws;  that  where  they  violate  law 
under  an  alleged  "necessity,"  they  remain  liable  to  justify 
a  bond,  fide  necessity  when  summoned  before  a  civil  court. 
Prerogative,  official  immunity,  superior  order,  "reasons  of 
state,"  "martial  law,"  are  in  this  behalf  mere  fictions  and 
figures  of  speech,  unknown  to  English  law.  The  final  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Stuart  dynasty  turned  on  this  very  claim  "to 
suspend  law,"  to  "dispense  with"  laws.  And  the  Bill  of 
Rights  was  the  answer  of  the  nation,  which  in  its  first  two 
sections  expressly  declares  the  pretended  power  of  suspend- 
ing law  or  dispensing  with  laws  to  be  illegal.  Now  the  Bill 
of  Rights  and  its  extending  statute  the  Act  of  Settlement  are 
the  constitutional  laws  which  deposed  the  Stuarts  and  are 
the  sole  title  to  the  throne  of  the  House  of  Hanover.  So 
that  the  constitutional  party  have  made  our  gracious  sov- 
ereign begin  his  reign  by  exercising  the  despotic  power  which 
cost  James  his  crown,  and  which  is  forbidden  by  the  very 
statute  to  which  King  Edward  VII.  owes  his  own  throne. 

It  was  a  strange  confusion  of  mind  that  caused  the  Prime 
Minister  to  say  that  if  Martial  Law  was  not  a  lawful  system 
it  ought  to  be  so  made.  Well,  there  is  a  very  simple  mode 
of  making  it  lawful,  which  is  to  carry  a  Bill  through  Parlia- 
ment and  turn  the  British   constitution  upside  down.     He 


236  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

might  just  as  well  say  —  "If  the  Crown  has  no  power  to 
tax  without  consent,  it  ought  to  be  given  that  power,  and  in 
the  meantime  we  will  take  it."  Or  he  might  say  —  "If  con- 
scription is  not  legal,  let  us  act  as  if  it  were,  for  it  ought  to 
be  legal."  This  is  just  what  Strafford  and  Laud,  Jeffreys 
and  James  II.,  tried  to  do.  They  all  said  —  if  the  constitu- 
tion does  not  give  power  enough  to  the  royal  prerogative, 
the  King  must  take  it  —  "for  the  good  of  his  people."  And 
so,  the  Prime  Minister  and  his  Chancellor  in  effect  say  — 
"The  King's  troops  have  seized  civilians  in  a  district  where 
order  has  not  been  disturbed,  keep  them  in  a  military  prison, 
uncharged  and  untried;  but  to  talk  about  Habeas  Corpus 
and  civil  courts  is  mere  'legal  pedantry,'  for  the  proclama- 
tion of  Martial  Law  by  His  Majesty's  officers  has  now  'sus- 
pended' law  and  'dispensed  with'  the  constitution  and  the 
--rights  ©f  the  subject !" 

It  is  strange  to  find  the  twentieth  century  thus  returning 
on  the  seventeenth.  It  is  stranger  to  see  the  constitutional 
party  opening  a  new  revolution  and  providing  future  weap- 
ons for  terrorists.  Danton  and  Robespierre  insisted  that 
foreign  invasion  and  treason  at  home  were  sufficient  author- 
ity for  the  party  in  possession  of  power  to  kill  those  who 
opposed  them,  with  or  without  legal  pedantry.  The  major- 
ity may  turn  even  here.  Those  who  hold  the  electorate  for 
the  time  being  fancy  themselves  exempt  from  the  risks  which 
were  run  by  a  Stuart  king.  But  the  electorate  is  fickle. 
Conscription  —  taxing  food  —  suppressing  trade  unions  — 
if  pressed  home,  as  some  imperialists  talk  of  pressing  them, 
might  lead  to  disorder  even  here;  might  end  in  a  civil  war 
and  surprising  changes  in  the  temper  of  the  people.  Why 
might  not  a  democratic  or  a  socialist  majority  "suspend  law," 
and  laugh  at  the  outcries  of  the  constitutional  party,  if  they 
ventured  to  appeal  in  their  own  behalf  to  "legal  pedantry"? 


XI 

EMPIRE  AND  HUMANITY 

{January  i,  1880) 

The  following  was  a  portion  of  the  Annual  Address  given  to  the 
Posit Ivist  Society  at  Newton  Hall  on  January  i,  1880. 
This  was  towards  the  end  of  the  Ministry  of  Lord  Bea- 
consfield,  and  about  the  epoch  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  famous 
Mid-Lothian  campaign.  It  was  published  in  the  Fort- 
nightly Review,  February  1880  (vol.  xxvii.). 

Though  it  is  now  twenty-eight  years  old,  it  is  reissued 
because  in  all  its  essential  principles  it  is  now  as  true  as  it 
was  then,  and  because  succeeding  events  have  proved  how 
real  were  the  dangers  which  it  deprecated,  and  how  con- 
tinually the  same  evils  are  bred  by  the  imperialist  system. 

It  may  serve  to  explain  the  general  view  of  the  political 
world  on  which  the  preceding  essays  and  protests  were 
based,  and  also  to  show  that  this  political  scheme  of 
international  justice  and  morality  is  the  direct  result  of 
the  religious  faith  expounded  in  preceding  volumes  {igo8). 

Europe  is  still  in  arms:  each  nation  watching  every  other 
with  suspicion,  jealousy,  or  menace.  The  West  still  groans 
under  that  policy  of  aggrandisement,  of  imperial  ambition 
and  military  concentration,  which  was  so  fatally  renewed 
by  the  house  of  Napoleon;  which  has  been  developed  into 
a  system  by  the  houses  of  Hohenzollern  and  Romanoff.  The 
crime  of  December  '51  led  on  by  a  sure  course  to  the  empire 

237 


238  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

of  the  Corsicans,  to  military  government,  to  foreign  wars, 
till  it  awoke  by  a  fatal  reaction  the  military  revival  of  Ger- 
many, and  ended  in  the  foundation  of  a  new  empire  of  the 
sword.     That  empire  was  the  prize  won  in  three  successive 
wars,  each  one  carefully  prepared  and  deliberately  contrived, 
and  each  followed  by  violent  annexation  of  territory.     The 
camp  at  Berlin  still  arms,  still  studies  new  wars,  still  menaces 
its  neighbours.     Worst  of  all,  it  fills  the  air  with  its  spirit, 
and  the  sense  of  foreboding.     It  fiercely  and  cynically  pro- 
claims that  its  conquests  must  naturally  lead  to  a  fresh 
appeal  to  the  sword;   and,  for  its  own  part,  it  hardly  cares 
how  soon  the  appeal  be  made.     Berlin  almost  taunts  Paris 
with  waiting  so  long  for  her  revenge.     To  the  east  of  Eu- 
rope, the  three  Empires  watch  each  other's  movements  with 
alternations    of    suspicion,    menace,    and    intrigue.     Russia 
seizes  the  opportunity  to  recommence  her  old  career  of  con- 
quest and  aggrandisement.     Italy  too  has  been  infected  with 
the  same  frenzy ;  and  vapours  about  winning  more  provinces 
in  arms.     And  as  Lord  Palmerston  gave  us  in  a  policy  of 
self-assertion  and  of  menace  a  weak  imitation  of  Napoleon's 
empire,  so  now  our  Lord  Beaconsfield  would  catch  some  rays 
from  the  imperial  crown  of  Germany,  and  parades  (against 
the  weak  and  the  uncivilised)  a  policy  of  Empire  and  of  War. 

For  more  than  a  generation  Europe  has  endured  the  mis- 
ery of  this  new  imperial  ambition.  Within  that  time  four 
new  titles  of  Emperor  or  Empress  have  been  assumed  by 
European  royal  families  —  of  which  titles  two  still  survive. 
Within  that  period  six  great  wars  in  Europe  have  been  waged, 
every  one  of  them  followed  by  territorial  changes  and  forcible 
annexation. 

And  what  is  the  result?  Russia  overwhelmed  with  a 
military  cancer,  a  prey  to  a  social  confusion  such  as  has  not 
been  seen  in  this  century.     Germany,  with  her  intelligence 


EMPIRE   AND   HUMANITY  239 

and  her  industry  bound  in  the  fetters  of  military  service,  gov- 
erned as  if  she  were  a  camp,  as  if  the  sole  object  of  peace 
were  to  prepare  for  war.  France  staggering  under  the  most 
tremendous  defeats  that  this  century  has  witnessed,  and  still 
not  clear  of  the  long  agony  of  her  domestic  revolution.  Italy 
weighted  with  a  useless  army,  uneasy,  intriguing,  restless. 
Spain  still  weak  from  the  drain  of  a  series  of  wars  and  internal 
convulsions.  England  uncertain,  divided  in  action,  con- 
tinually distracted  and  dishonoured  by  an  endless  succession 
of  miserable  wars  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe. ^ 

Such  is  a  picture  of  Europe  after  a  generation  of  im- 
perialism and  of  aggressive  war.  Who  is  the  gainer?  Is 
the  poor  Russian  moujik,  torn  from  his  home  to  die  in  Cen- 
tral Asia  or  on  the  passes  of  the  Balkans,  doomed  to  a  gov- 
ernment of  ever  deepening  corruption  and  tyranny?  Is  the 
workman  of  Berlin  the  better,  crushed  by  military  oppres- 
sion, and  industrial  recklessness  ?  Who  is  the  gainer  —  the 
rulers  or  the  ruled?  Is  the  French  peasant  the  gainer  now 
that  Alsace  and  Lorraine  are  gone,  and  nothing  rests  of  the 
empire  but  its  debt,  its  conspirators,  and  its  legacy  of  confu- 
sion ?  Or  is  the  wretched  Czar  the  gainer,  hunted  like  a  mad 
dog?  Or  the  imperial  family  of  Germany,  so  ominously 
bound  up  with  the  future  of  the  Czar?  Or  our  own  Em- 
press and  Queen  in  whose  name  patriots  and  priests  are  being 
hung  in  Kabul  ?  Who  is  the  gainer  by  this  career  of  blood- 
shed and  ambition  ?  It  would  be  a  gloomy  outlook  for  those 
who  believe  in  Humanity,  in  Progress,  in  a  Future  of  Peace, 
were  it  not  that  we  know  this  to  be  the  last  throes  of  the 
monarchical  and  military  system.  And  we  hear  the  groans 
of  the  millions  —  the  working,  suffering  millions  —  who  are 


'  This  was  spoken  in  January  1880,  at  the  close  of  Lord  Beaconsfield's 
ministry;  and  in  the  twenty-eight  years  since  somewhat  similar  conditions 
prevailed  (January   1900). 


240  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

yearning  to  replace  this  cruel  system,  none  of  their  making, 
none  of  their  choice,  by  which  they  gain  nothing,  from  which 
they  hope  nothing. 

For  more  than  a  generation  our  party  has  called  out  that 
there  can  be  no  safety  for  the  West  until  the  grand  object  of 
our  rulers  becomes  the  peaceful  reorganisation  of  Industry. 
It  has  insisted  on  Peace  —  the  status  quo  —  avoidance  of  all 
attempts  to  resettle  and  redistribute  the  world:  it  has  pro- 
tested against  the  consolidation  of  all  vast  states,  and  above 
all  against  the  formation  of  all  military  empires.  This 
policy,  our  central  policy  for  the  West,  has  been  much  more 
than  the  mere  cry  for  Peace.  We  are  no  simple  Peace  So- 
ciety, without  a  policy,  appealing  to  mere  repugnance  to 
bloodshed  and  waste.  Our  policy  has  been  an  active  one,  a 
policy  of  efficient  maintenance  of  peace.  We  have  asked, 
in  words  more  earnest  and  consistent,  we  make  bold  to  say, 
than  any  of  the  new  school  of  imperialists,  that  the  weight 
of  England  should  make  itself  felt  in  the  world;  that  our 
whole  power  should  be  committed  to  maintain  a  policy ;  that 
England  should  play  a  great  part  and  speak  with  a  voice  of 
authority  in  the  councils  of  Europe.  Who  is  a  patriot,  filled 
with  the  high  memories  of  our  glorious  name,  staunch  to 
make  every  sacrifice  to  continue  that  heroic  tradition  to  our 
children  and  our  children's  children  to  the  twentieth  genera- 
tion, if  we  (whose  very  religion  is  regard  for  our  heroic  an- 
cestors) are  not  amongst  such  men?  But  our  policy  has 
been  Peace,  the  active  maintenance  of  the  actual  settlement, 
the  protection  of  the  weak,  the  resistance  of  the  strong. 

Nor  has  it  been  any  knight-errant  policy  that  we  called  for. 
Our  policy  was  to  use  the  whole  might  of  our  great  nation  to 
prevent  the  outbreak  of  war,  to  discourage  and,  if  need  be, 
stand  in  arms  against  all  violent  recasting  of  the  map  of 
Europe,  to  call  round  us  a  confederation  of  the  Powers  in- 


EMPIRE   AND   HUMANITY  24I 

terested  in  peace,  to  strengthen  the  weak  Power  menaced,  and 
to  defeat  the  ambition  of  the  aggressor.  It  is  an  English,  not 
an  Asiatic  pohcy.  Who  can  overrate  the  power  of  such  a 
nation  as  England,  had  it  been  consistently  and  firmly  pushed, 
not  in  defence  of  British  interests  and  menaced  empire,  but 
in  the  spirit  of  Elizabeth,  of  Cromwell,  of  William  III.,  to 
defeat  the  schemes  of  aggrandisement  from  one  side  or  from 
the  other,  and  to  place  itself  at  the  head  of  all  the  Powers  in 
Europe  who  seriously  desired  the  maintenance  of  order? 
Our  steady  demand  has  been  for  a  policy  which  might  give 
rest  and  calm  to  Europe,  and  turn  all  Governments  from 
their  foreign  schemes  of  conquest  to  the  one  work  that  awaits 
them  —  the  social  reorganisation  of  industry,  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  progressive,  less  centralised,  less  bureaucratic 
system  of  government. 

We  have  protested  against  the  encouragement  of  any 
scheme  of  territorial  aggression,  however  plausibly  veiled, 
and  whatever  the  incidental  gain  which  it  seemed  to  promise 
for  the  moment.  Certainly  we  have  called  out,  as  loudly 
as  any,  for  the  free  development  of  every  distinct  nationality, 
for  the  free  development  of  the  Irish  and  the  Indian  races,  as 
well  as  for  the  free  development  of  the  races  of  the  Balkans 
or  the  banks  of  the  Danube.  We  are  against  all  oppression 
of  conquered  by  their  conquerors;  we  look  for  the  dissolu- 
tion of  these  empires  of  conquest ;  we  desire  decentralisation 
of  vast  political  communities,  and  not  a  never-ending  system 
of  annexations;  and,  above  all,  we  protest  against  military 
government  in  every  form.  But  we  protest  against  it  in 
Calcutta  or  Dublin,  in  Algeria  or  Paris,  in  Berlin  or  Moscow, 
in  Rome  or  Madrid,  quite  as  much  as,  and  even  more  than, 
we  protest  against  military  government  in  Constantinople  and 
the  Balkans.  We  do  not  pick  and  choose  our  oppressed 
nationalities  to  be  favoured  with  the  blessings  of  self-govern- 


242  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

ment.  And  it  may  be  that,  with  bleeding  hearts  and  almost 
overwhelmed  with  the  cry  of  horrible  sufferings  and  slavery, 
we  may  have  still  to  turn  aside  from  fair-seeming  projects  of 
redemption,  of  oppressed  Christians  in  the  Balkans,  or  in 
Asia  Minor,  when  we  find  them  but  the  masque  of  a  merciless 
lust  of  dominion  even  more  dangerous  to  the  future  of  man- 
kind; when  we  know  them  to  be  the  signal  in  Europe  of  a 
fresh  epoch  of  conquest,  war,  and  imperial  ambition ;  when 
we  see  them  to  mean  the  extermination  of  one  population  in 
the  very  act  of  protecting  another. 

Where  might  Russia  be  at  this  moment,  in  peace  and 
prosperity;  where  would  Europe  be,  if  the  Czars  had  fol- 
lowed the  course  which  Auguste  Comte  urged  on  their  Gov- 
ernment more  than  a  generation  since:  to  abstain  from  all 
interference  with  the  Western  nations  outside  their  own  vast 
dominions,  and  to  devote  their  power  to  the  social  elevation 
of  their  half-civilised  people?  Again,  what  a  different  con- 
dition was  in  store  for  France,  had  she  set  herself  to  develop 
her  long  social  revolution  by  a  policy  of  decentralisation,  by 
freeing  the  labour  of  the  workmen,  by  abolishing  all  spiritual 
interference  in  the  state,  by  the  simple  maintenance  of 
Order  with  full  liberty  of  speech,  of  association,  of  conscience. 
We  who  have  always  insisted  that  the  Government  of  France 
must  be  profoundly  republican  and  essentially  social,  but 
still  the  government  of  men  and  not  of  assemblies  or  of  mobs, 
are  hardly  surprised  that  in  spite  of  the  triumph  of  the  re- 
public, and  of  Universal  Suffrage,  all  parties  in  France  feel 
how  much  is  yet  to  be  desired.  We,  at  any  rate,  have  never 
been  superstitious  believers  in  Democracy.  We  have  never 
thought  it  was  enough  to  proclaim  the  republic  and  then 
rush  to  the  ballot-boxes.  We  believe  and  trust  that  the 
establishment  of  the  republic  in  France  is  the  signal,  as  it  is 
the  evidence,  of  a  new  era  about  to  open  for  the  West.     But 


EMPIRE   AND   HUMANITY  243 

we  never  shall  believe  that  the  future  of  France  is  secure, 
until  she  has  found  a  Government  and  men  to  direct  it. 

To  turn  to  our  own  country,  we  note  that  the  three  great 
questions  which  are  pressing  on  our  people  to-day  are  the 
three  burning  problems,  of  which  for  a  generation  Positivism 
has  called  for  an  active  treatment  —  the  condition  of  produc- 
tive industry,  the  state  of  Ireland,  the  ever-growing  Empire. 

To-day  in  the  midst  of  suffering  and  dejection,  as  for  so 
many  years  past  in  the  hour  of  its  prosperity  and  pride.  Posi- 
tivism appeals  to  the  territorial  lords  of  this  soil  to  recognise 
how  unwholesome  and  exceptional  a  system  is  that  on  which 
the  agricultural  industry  of  this  country  is  based;  a  system 
unknown  in  any  people  in  the  world,  in  any  age  in  history. 
To-day,  as  for  a  generation.  Positivism  repeats  its  appeal 
to  the  ruling  class  in  England,  in  Scotland,  and  in  Ireland, 
that  the  sole  condition  on  which  the  social  order  of  these 
islands  can  be  maintained  is  by  the  systematic  recasting  of 
the  feudal  and  semi-military  settlement  of  industry  into  a 
social  and  purely  industrial  settlement.  The  ornamental 
squire,  the  dependent  tenant,  the  hopeless  labourer,  are 
things  of  the  past,  of  the  corruption  of  chivalry,  and  of  the 
degradation  of  industry.  We  have  been  told,  on  high  au- 
thority, that  there  must  always  be  three  classes  planted  on 
British  land,  and  maintained  out  of  the  products  of  its  fruits. 
We  repeat  as  firmly  as  ever  that  there  is  room  in  these  islands, 
there  is  justification  in  history  (I  will  not  say  for  two  classes 
only)  but  for  two  functions  only  —  that  of  the  energetic  and 
enlightened  director  of  manual  labour,  and  that  of  the  dis- 
ciplined and  educated  workman. 

Again,  in  the  hour  of  gloom,  famine,  and  repression,  we 
repeat  what  we  have  claimed  for  Ireland  in  good  times  and 
in  bad  times  —  that  she  be  treated  as  a  substantive  people, 
one  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  West,  entitled  to  a  Gov- 


244  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

ernment  that  shall  satisfy  her  legitimate  craving  for  national 
existence.  Would  that  we  could  see  the  end  of  this  ill- 
omened  and  historic  struggle  to  crush  the  Irish  people  into 
the  mass  of  the  British  people.  This  is  not  the  place  or  the 
occasion  on  which  we  can  usefully  consider  the  precise 
scheme  —  perhaps  one  may  say  the  indefinite  scheme  —  that 
is  known  as  Home  Rule,  much  less  the  details  of  any  ques- 
tion of  land  reform.  We  who  are  far  from  believing  that  a 
Parliament  of  any  kind  is  the  panacea  of  a  national  crisis,  are 
not  prepared  to  think  that  the  difficulties  of  Ireland  will  be 
solved  merely  by  a  Parliament  in  Dublin. 

We  are  not  about  to  propose  —  we  have  never  proposed  — 
the  erection  of  Ireland  into  a  foreign  state.  But  we  call  out 
now  with  all  the  increased  energy  that  comes  from  increas- 
ing acuteness  of  the  evil,  not  for  more  bayonets,  more  sus- 
pension of  law,  more  menaces  to  the  Irish  people,  but  for  a 
Government  of  the  Irish  people  in  Ireland,  and  from  Ireland 
—  a  Government  in  the  interests  of  the  Irish  people,  not 
from  the  British  point  of  view,  or  the  point  of  view  of  Saxon- 
ised  landlords.  The  Irish  peasant  has  as  good  a  claim  to  be 
protected  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  soil  on  which  he  labours,  and 
which  his  labour  creates  again,  as  the  corporation  or  squire 
who  has  been  imposed  upon  him  as  his  landlord  by  a  foreign 
law  that  he  could  not  resist.  We  complain  of  the  mockery 
of  forcing  a  system  of  contract,  and  an  alien  law  of  contract, 
a  system  of  competition  and  the  higgling  of  the  market,  on  a 
people  who  are  hardly  in  the  stage  of  contract  or  competi- 
tion at  all,  who  refuse  to  accept  that  law,  and  who  are  not 
really  free  to  contract,  nor  sufficiently  independent  to  com- 
pete. By  enforcing  prematurely  a  system  of  contract  and 
foreign  law  on  the  Indian  peasantry,  they  are  being  pauper- 
ised and  ruined:  by  a  similar  process  the  Irish  peasant  is 
driven  by  millions  into  exile. 


EMPIRE   AND   HUMANITY  245 

But  it  is  chiefly,  in  this  time  of  shame  and  affliction,  that 
we  would  raise  our  voices  against  the  revival  of  the  worst 
tradition  of  the  past  —  an  empire  of  conquest  and  domination. 
We  condemn  this  war  in  which  the  heroic  Zulu  people  have 
been  decimated,  as  evil  in  every  circumstance,  instigated  by 
ambition,  without  a  single  solid  reason,  condemned  by  the 
very  Ministry  which  in  so  weak  and  craven  a  way  has  adopted 
and  prosecuted  it.  It  is  a  war,  too,  carried  out  with  every 
circumstance  of  cruel  injustice  and  insolent  barbarity.  We 
condemn  it  not  simply  as  being  an  act  of  unprovoked  war, 
but  as  distorting  and  poisoning  our  whole  system  of  relations 
with  the  African  races;  as  laying  the  foundations  of  a  new 
African  empire  of  crime  and  oppression;  as  kindling  the 
worst  passions  throughout  the  fibres  of  our  entire  colonial 
system.  We  condemn  it  furthermore  on  the  ground  of  the 
exceptional  heroism  of  the  people  who  were  its  victims,  and 
of  the  great  man  who  was  beginning  to  form  them  into  a 
nation.  We  condemn  it  most  of  all  because  it  has  blotted 
out  one  of  those  nascent  peoples  from  whom  alone  the  future 
civilisation  of  Africa  can  be  hoped. ^ 

The  war  for  the  subjugation  of  the  Afghan  races,  a  war 
almost  equally  wanton  and  cruel,  presents  to  our  eyes  the 
additional  element  of  evil  that  it  must  throw  back  the  task 
of  administering  our  Indian  empire.  A  war  which,  to  every 
circumstance  of  injustice,  bad  faith,  and  barbarity,  adds  to 
the  crushing  load  of  exaction  wrung  from  200  millions  of 
our  fellow-subjects,  a  war  by  which  a  military  dominion 
is  yet  further  militarised,  religious  hatreds  are  kindled  anew, 
and  the  race  feud,  the  secular  antagonism  between  con- 
querors and  conquered,  is  traced  in  deeper  and  bloodier 
lines  upon  the  memory:    such  a  war  is  a  real  calamity  in 

*  The  Zulu  war  of  1879  has  since  been  followed  by  many  a  similar  African 
war  (1908). 


246  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

the  history  of  England.  With  all  our  force  we  have  pro- 
tested against  it ;  and,  again,  with  all  the  strength  of  religious 
conviction,  we  call  upon  the  conscience  of  our  countrymen 
to  clear  themselves  from  this  portentous  offence. 

We  see  in  this  war  another  example  of  the  moral  dangers 
with  which  our  whole  imperial  system  is  beset ;  and  we  have 
not  hesitated  to  make  our  voices  heard  in  the  special  circum- 
stances of  bad  faith  and  cruelty  with  which  an  unjust  war 
has  been  doubly  stained.  Having  so  recently  criticised 
the  particular  conduct  of  the  actual  operations,  we  need 
say  no  more  to-day  of  the  almost  unexampled  enormity  of 
hanging  as  rebels  and  marauders  the  soldiers  and  priests 
who  resisted  the  invasion  of  an  unoffending  people.^ 

We  who  look  forward  to  a  human  religion  can  hope  but 
little  from  the  Churches  in  dealing  with  this  Central  Asian 
crime.  The  official  priests  of  the  old  faiths  accept  without 
questioning  the  authorised  judgment  of  the  political  Govern- 
ment. They  are  engaged,  in  obedience  to  the  Primate,  in 
calling  upon  their  God  of  Battles  (can  it  be,  their  God  of 
Mercy  ?)  to  keep  the  British  soldiers  —  the  invaders,  the 
burners  of  villages,  the  hangmen  of  priests  —  in  his  good 
and  holy  keeping.  The  ministers  of  any  theological  faith 
are  not  prepared  to  argue  these  national  undertakings  with 
the  temporal  power.  The  priests  of  an  Establishment 
accept  the  worldly  policy  of  the  official  Government.  It 
will  not  be  so  with  a  human  faith.  The  religion  of  Human- 
ity has  its  kingdom  in  this  world,  and  it  is  its  special  privi- 
lege to  treat  the  great  questions  of  the  age  as  matters  of 
practical  politics  with  full  knowledge,  with  a  close  and  inde- 
pendent judgment  of  every  argument  in  the  statesman's 
craft.     We  make  bold  to  say  that  Positivism  stands  alone 

'  The  Afghan  war  of  1879-80  has  been  followed  by  some  similar  Indian 
expeditions,  as  in  Burmah,  Tibet,  etc.  (1908). 


EMPIRE   AND   HUMANITY  247 

amongst  religions  in  treating  politics  from  the  point  of  view 
of  politicians,  or  rather  with  the  knowledge  of  politicians; 
because  it  is  an  essential  part  of  that  religion  itself  to  judge 
the  true  statesmanship  from  the  false,  and  to  uphold  the 
principles  which  lie  beneath  all  statesmanship  whatever. 

But  in  a  far  deeper  sense  do  these  distant  crimes  concern 
us,  more  than  they  concern  the  theologies  of  the  day.  In 
the  religion  of  Humanity  there  are  no  distinctions  of  skin 
or  race,  of  sect  or  creed;  all  are  our  brothers  and  fellow- 
citizens  of  the  world  —  children  of  the  same  great  kith  and 
kin.  Whether  they  follow  God  or  the  Prophet,  Christ  or 
Buddha,  Confucius  or  Moses,  they  are  believers  in  a  faith 
which  we  profoundly  venerate;  they  are  all  sharers  in  the 
glorious  roll  of  which  we  would  perpetuate  the  muster.  The 
religion  of  Humanity  is  Catholic  in  a  sense  that  no  Christian 
ever  was  or  could  be,  for  it  can  include  the  countless  millions 
who  reject  Christ,  who  passionately  cling  to  another  phase 
of  religious  life,  alien  and  hostile  to  his.  In  this  very  month, 
which  we  associate  with  the  memory  of  Moses,  the  weeks 
are  associated  with  the  names  of  all  the  great  prophets  and 
teachers  who  maintain  the  religious  life  of  the  East:  with 
Confucius,  Buddha,  and  Mahomet.  We  embrace  them  all 
and  honour  them  all  —  the  great  patriarchs  and  Hebrew 
prophets  and  kings;  the  great  founders  of  the  empires  of 
the  East,  Zoroaster  and  his  Sun  Worship,  the  Theocrats 
of  Tibet,  the  Theocrats  of  Japan,  the  great  teachers  of  China, 
the  great  chiefs  of  the  Mussulman  world.  When  these 
sacred  and  heroic  names  are  read  round  the  altars  of  the 
Christian  fanes,  then  and  then  only  can  the  religion  of  Christ 
pretend  to  the  glorious  name  of  Catholic. 

But  we  of  the  human  religion  which  we  would  fain  call 
Catholic  —  if  the  word  Catholic  itself  had  not  been  so  often 
polluted  —  we,  whilst  the  priests  of  the  Catholic  world  in 


248  NATIONAL    AND    SOCIAL    PROBLEMS 

its  decay  are  calling  down  official  blessings  on  the  heads 
of  those  who  ravage  and  kill  with  no  just  cause,  we  can  com- 
memorate the  sufferings  and  heroic  deaths  of  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  noble  men  who  gave  up  their  lives  for  their  homes 
and  their  race  in  a  rude  sense  of  duty  to  their  tribe,  men  of 
a  darker  skin  than  ours,  of  a  lower  type  of  life,  in  the  mere 
beginnings  of  civilised  existence,  horribly  savage  it  may  be, 
but  still  our  human  brothers,  our  own  flesh  and  blood,  fired 
to  the  last  with  high  and  generous  souls.  Nor  will  humanity 
suffer  us  to  forget  the  honourable  men  of  our  own  people 
who  died  in  this  same  cruel  work  in  the  honest  performance 
of  their  duty,  men  who  did  these  things  of  no  choice  of  their 
own,  utterly  ignorant  for  the  most  part,  themselves  but 
helpless  victims  of  perverse  rulers. 

No !  it  is  not  that  we  have  outlived  the  spirit  of  patriotism 
and  care  nothing  for  the  bond  of  country.  It  is  that  we 
earnestly  cling  to  the  idea  of  country,  and  honour  to  the 
utmost  the  brave  men  who  so  nobly  maintained  that  sacred 
trust.  Those  who  have  wantonly  crushed  the  Zulu  nation 
and  broken  up  the  Afghan  kingdom  are  they  who  have 
trampled  under  foot  the  duty  of  patriotism.  It  is  for  us  to 
insist  how  precious  to  the  life  of  the  world  are  these  grow- 
ing aggregates  of  people  when  the  lofty  conception  of  nation 
first  comes  to  supersede  the  narrower  idea  of  clan  or  tribe. 
It  is  we  who  defend  the  sacred  name  of  country;  it  is  the 
invader  and  the  conqueror  that  drag  it  in  the  dust. 

Above  all,  we  would  make  it  clear  that  it  is  in  no  spirit 
of  party  that  we  speak.  Our  horror  of  these  foreign  crimes 
is  not  bred  afresh  in  us  at  the  prospect  of  a  general  election. 
To  those  who  for  a  generation  have  protested  against  the 
empire  of  conquest  and  domination,  it  is  little  comfort 
whether  Whig  or  Tory  be  in  power,  it  is  little  that  we  hope 
from  a  change  of  party.     For  a  generation  we  have  called 


EMPIRE   AND   HUMANITY  249 

out  against  every  extension  of  our  empire,  against  every 
fresh  act  of  military  or  commercial  ambition,  against  the 
military  oppression  of  India,  against  the  opium  wars  in 
China,  the  wars  to  break  into  Japan,  against  the  opium 
monopoly  in  India,  against  the  Burmese  wars,  and  the  wars 
in  New  Zealand,  in  the  Cape,  in  Abyssinia,  in  Ashantee, 
in  Zululand,  in  Afghanistan:  and  we  have  called  out  in 
vain,  whether  a  Liberal  or  a  Conservative  Ministry  might 
chance  to  be  in  power.  Quae  caret  ora  cruore  nostra  ?  What 
race,  which  hemisphere,  what  latitude,  has  not  seen  the 
unsheathed  sword  of  Britain?  These  crimes  are  the  work 
of  the  military  and  commercial  aristocracy  of  England. 
They  are  not  the  special  work  of  Lord  Beaconsfield  or  the 
party  he  leads. 

For  twenty  years  and  more  we  have  sought  to  make  our 
voices  heard  when  Hindoos  were  being  blown  from  guns 
and  hunted  like  wild  beasts ;  when  negroes  were  being  flogged 
and  hung  in  a  ferocious  and  ignoble  panic;  when  Chinese 
Governments  were  being  forced  to  receive  a  poison,  and 
Japanese  Governments  were  being  bombarded  into  receiving 
our  goods ;  when  African  and  Asian  tribes  were  being  butch- 
ered on  one  worthless  pretext  after  another,  the  real  end 
being  always  a  sordid  lust  of  new  markets.  And  to  us  who 
know  all  this  it  seems  like  a  mockery  indeed  to  hear  the  new- 
blown  horror  in  some  patriots  of  a  war  of  conquest  and 
aggression. 

A  party  attack  upon  an  unjust  war,  even  a  genuine  protest 
against  exceptional  barbarity,  will  tell  but  little  in  the  long 
run,  whilst  the  governing  classes  of  this  nation  maintain  and 
defend  the  system  of  military  empire.  An  empire  gained 
by  the  sword,  to  be  maintained  by  the  sword,  to  be  consoli- 
dated in  the  spirit  of  the  sword,  an  empire  to  supply  the 
poHtical  and  military  classes  with  careers,  and  the  commer- 


250  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

cial  classes  with  markets,  to  be  a  source  of  profit  and  glory, 
to  be  to  England  of  to-day  what  the  West  Indies  were  to  Spain, 
what  the  Levant  was  to  Venice  —  an  empire  which  is  to  be 
above  and  outside  of  all  discussion,  something  that  makes 
everything  lawful,  and  for  which  everything  must  be  suffered, 
or  committed,  or  risked  —  whilst  this  empire  is  the  founda- 
tion of  the  governing  system  of  the  entire  governing  class, 
protests  against  particular  crimes  are  idle  words.  An  em- 
pire built  up  step  by  step,  in  blood  and  fraud,  in  rapacity 
and  race  ascendancy,  without  one  thought  of  morality,  or 
anything  but  selfish  advantage,  is  not  likely  to  be  main- 
tained by  mere  expressions  of  good-will,  cannot  possibly 
exist  without  terrible  struggles  and  catastrophes.  It  is  in 
vain  for  a  political  party  to  invent  a  nickname  for  their 
opponents,  and  to  call  heaven  to  witness  that  this  new  and 
unheard-of  depravity  is  the  source  of  every  national  offence. 
Imperialism  is  the  creed  of  all  who  find  in  the  military  em- 
pire the  glory  and  the  strength  of  England.  And  they  form 
the  bulk  of  the  official  and  governing  classes,  under  which- 
ever political  chief  they  are  sworn  to  serve. 

To  us  this  empire  is  something  far  other,  very  contrary 
indeed  to  the  glory  and  gain  of  England.  It  is  her  grand 
responsibility  and  danger.  It  is  an  anomaly,  a  huge  excres- 
cence, an  abnormal  and  morbid  growth  of  this  fair  island 
and  its  people.  It  is  the  work  of  that  wild  orgy  of  indus- 
trial energy  that  marked  the  last  century,  the  plunge  of  an 
energetic  race  into  a  mercantile  and  colonial  saturnalia  — 
much  as  our  neighbours  in  France  plunged  headlong  into 
a  social  and  political  saturnalia.  That  empire  is  a  vast 
collection  of  distant  and  disparate  countries  and  races,  in- 
capable of  assimilation  with  each  other  or  with  us,  scattered 
over  the  planet  in  every  phase  of  civilisation,  with  every 
variation  of  history;  differing  in  religion,  manners,  race,  and 


EMPIRE  AND  HUMANITY  25 1 

capabilities.  It  is  unlike  every  empire  that  ever  existed; 
unlike  the  old  Roman  empire,  unlike  the  actual  Russian 
empire,  unlike  even  the  bad  old  Spanish  and  Venetian  em- 
pires —  inasmuch  as  it  is  ten  times  as  vast  and  fifty  times 
as  complex.  Duly  and  rightly  to  govern,  in  the  high  and 
true  sense  of  the  word  (that  is,  wisely  to  develop  the  life  and 
energies  of  these  scattered  peoples)  would  demand  the 
strength,  the  wealth,  the  enlightenment,  the  moral  conscience 
of  fifty  Englands.  Our  one  England  is  utterly  incapable 
of  this  superhuman  task.  And  it  is  the  failure  in  the  attempt 
that  is  the  shame  and  rebuke  of  England. 

An  empire  which,  like  that  of  Russia,  forms  in  one  terri- 
tory a  homogeneous  state,  alike  in  religion,  race,  law,  and 
manners,  has  a  raison  d'etre,  however  vast  and  unwieldy. 
But  an  empire  which  consists  of  fragments  geographically 
incapable  of  union ;  where  every  fact  of  race,  religion,  habit, 
and  feeling  makes  incorporation  and  fellow-citizenship  hope- 
less even  in  the  most  distant  future ;  this  remains  stamped 
as  an  aggregate  of  dependencies  and  not  an  empire.  But 
an  aggregate  of  dependencies  which  is  for  ever  disturbed 
and  menaced,  and  for  ever  awaiting  or  forestalling  attack, 
which  contributes  nothing  to  the  home  government  in  money, 
or  men,  or  resources  of  any  kind,  is  not  a  strength  but  an 
increasing  weakness.  It  must  pull  down  the  strongest  race 
that  ever  trod  the  earth ;  and  as  it  pulls  them  down,  it  will 
hurry  them  from  one  crime  to  another. 

What  can  be  done  is  this.  The  government  of  such  an 
empire  by  thirty  millions  of  men  in  a  petty  island  of  the 
West  is  impossible.  But  it  may  be  garrisoned;  it  may  be 
occupied ;  it  may  be  held  for  a  few  years  longer  with  a  hard 
mechanical  pressure,  securing  external  order  but  repressing 
all  true  national  life;  it  may  furnish  markets;  the  wealth, 
and  energy,  and  dauntless  heart  of  our  race  may  keep  up 


252  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

the  specious  fabric  for  another  generation  or  two,  breaking 
ever  now  and  again  into  further  seas  of  blood,  more  con- 
quests, more  vengeance,  ever  sliding  down  the  slope  of  tyr- 
anny, cruelty,  and  panic.  But  it  cannot  be  for  ever.  The 
unwieldy  and  unorganised  mass  may  break  into  fragments 
at  any  day  under  internal  convulsion  or  foreign  attack. 
But  till  that  day  comes,  it  may  still  be  held  by  sheer  force 
of  energy,  as  a  source  of  profit  for  the  moment  to  special 
classes  of  Englishmen,  corrupting  the  true  fibre  of  the  nation, 
and  really  paralysing  it  for  every  duty  in  Europe  and  at 
home.  It  is  impossible  to  govern  this  empire,  as  it  ought 
to  be  governed,  for  the  sake  of  its  members,  or  so  as  to  assist 
in  the  true  progress  of  our  people;  it  is  possible  to  defend 
it  for  a  season,  at  the  cost  of  the  subjects  who  compose 
it,  and  at  the  sacrifice  of  all  that  is  truly  great  in 
England. 

England  is  not  herself,  whilst  she  is  forced  thus  to  keep 
anxious  and  suspicious  watch  across  Africa  and  Asia  over 
her  huge  and  precarious  prize.  Our  statesmen,  our  jour- 
nalists, our  preachers,  come  bound  to  every  question  of  policy 
and  morality  by  the  silent  influence  of  a  half-uttered  thought 
—  "  Come  what  may,  the  empire  must  be  saved."  For  this, 
they  close  their  ears,  and  harden  their  hearts,  when  black 
and  brown  men  are  being  massacred  and  despoiled;  when 
Cetewayo  and  Langabalele  are  shamefully  kept  in  prison, 
and  Theodore  and  Shere  Ali  are  hunted  to  death.  As  a 
system  of  slavery  prepares  the  slave-holding  caste  for  any 
inhumanity  that  may  seem  to  defend  it,  so  an  empire  of 
subjects  trains  up  the  imperial  race  to  every  injustice  and 
deadens  them  to  any  form  of  selfishness. 

And  if  it  hardens  our  politicians,  it  degrades  our  Churches. 
The  thirst  for  rule,  the  greed  of  the  market,  and  the  saving 
of  souls,  all  work  in  accord  together.     The  Churches  ap- 


EMPIRE   AND  HUMANITY  253 

prove  and  bless  whilst  the  warriors  and  the  merchants  are 
adding  new  provinces  to  the  empire;  they  have  delivered 
the  heathen  to  the  secular  arm,  and  they  hope  one  day  to 
convert  them  to  the  truth.  An  absolute  creed,  salvation 
through  Christ,  of  necessity  tend  to  an  anti-human  work; 
they  forgive  the  rapacity  of  the  trader ;  they  inflame,  instead 
of  checking,  the  rage  of  war.  Christianity  in  practice,  as 
we  know  it  now,  for  all  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  is  the 
religion  of  aggression,  domination,  combat.  It  waits  upon 
the  pushing  trader  and  the  lawless  conqueror;  and  with 
obsequious  thanksgiving  it  blesses  his  enterprise. 

We  will  not  believe  that  our  sound-hearted  people  can 

for  ever  continue  in  this  career  of  evil.     There  is  a  national 

conscience;    and  when  it  stirs,  the  most  imposing  empires 

totter  and  break  up  beneath  it.     To  us  this  empire  is  the 

great  load  upon  the  future  of  our  country,  almost  upon  the 

future  of  the  world.     It  can  be  transformed  first  and  shaken 

off  at  last  by  no  political  party  —  by  nothing  but  a  religious 

movement.     What  slavery  and  the  slave  trade  once  were 

to  our  grandfathers  here,  what  a  slave  industry  and  a  slave 

society  were  to  the  Americans  of  yesterday,  that  empire  is 

becoming  to  Englishmen  to-day.     A  cry  of  emancipation, 

as  of  a  religious  duty  to  redress  the  sufferings  of  humanity, 

is  rising  up  here  too.     Our  people  have  no  share  in  this  guilt, 

as  they  have  none  in  the  gain  or  the  glory.     A  small  band  in 

a  religious  sense  of  duty  raised  their  voices  against  the  crime 

of  slavery,  and  the  slave  trade  and  English  slavery  passed 

away  like  a  nightmare  from  our  dreams.     Again  a  small 

band  of  religious  believers  and  social  reformers  swore  in 

the  sight  of  men  that  the  slave  society  should  be  purged 

from  their  nation:   and  slavery  and  the  slave  society  are  a 

thing  of  the  past.     The  strength  of  the  military  empire, 

the  fury  of  its  partisans,  have  nothing  to  compare  with  their 


254  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

parallel  in  the  slave  system  in  the  Southern  states.  And 
where  is  that  slave  system  now? 

We  are  no  fanatics,  no  blind  abolitionists:  we  claim  to 
be  politicians,  and  even  conservative  politicians.  We  have 
no  crude  project  for  abandoning  the  empire  to-morrow  like 
a  leaky  ship,  or  handing  it  over  to  confusion  or  chance,  as 
a  prey  to  new  conquerors.  We  will  consider  all  these  ques- 
tions, each  in  its  own  field,  each  pro  re  nata,  and  with  all 
the  data  of  political  science.  We  do  not  pretend  that  the 
blind  conquests  of  former  ages  can  be  resettled  in  a  day,  or 
that  we  ought  to  fling  off  the  tremendous  responsibilities 
with  which  ages  of  history  have  burdened  us.  But  this  we 
do  say:  the  heterogeneous  empire  must  be  regarded  as  a 
passing  responsibility,  and  not  as  a  permanent  greatness  of 
our  country.  It  must  be  administered  with  an  honest  desire 
to  avoid  all  fresh  strife,  and  the  ground  of  further  oppression. 
To  increase  its  burdens  and  its  limits  should  be  a  public 
crime.  To  secure  peace  in  it,  for  peace  is  its  one  justifica- 
tion, should  be  the  first  of  public  duties.  In  the  meantime 
it  must  be  governed  in  the  sole  interest  of  the  countless  mill- 
ions who  compose  it;  and  not  only  in  their  interest,  but  in 
their  spirit,  until  the  time  shall  arrive  when,  part  by  part, 
it  may  be  developed  into  normal  and  national  life  of  its  own. 

If  this  cannot  be  done,  if  it  cannot  be  begun  at  once,  would 
that  this  huge  crime  against  mankind  could  be  ended  by  any 
means.  To  go  on  as  we  do  now  from  one  outrage  on  justice 
to  another,  in  the  vague  hope  that  some  day  we  may  begin 
to  do  our  duty,  when  all  our  subjects  are  perfectly  submis- 
sive and  all  our  neighbours  are  perfectly  friendly,  is  indeed 
mere  self-delusion.  We  can  accept  neither  the  selfish  plea 
of  national  glory,  nor  the  specious  plea  of  a  civilising  mission. 
Nothing  that  England  can  gain,  nothing  that  the  world  can 
gain  from  this  empire,  is  worth  the  frightful  and  increasing 


EMPIRE   AND   HUMANITY  255 

price  that  we  pay  for  it  year  by  year  in  guilt,  and  blood,  and 
hatred.  We  listen  with  wonder  to  the  alternate  cries  of 
indignation  which  are  raised  by  our  two  great  parties  in  the 
state:  the  one  burning  to  tear  to  pieces  the  Mahometan 
empire  in  the  East,  the  other  breathing  war  against  the 
aggressive  empire  of  the  Czar.  Would  that  they  could  re- 
member how  they  and  their  successive  Governments  in  turn 
maintain  an  empire  as  truly  military  in  its  basis  as  that  of 
Turkey  or  of  Russia;  one  which  gives  its  subject  races  as 
little  free  national  life  as  is  given  in  the  Ottoman  system, 
which  engages  in  more  wars  of  annexation  and  conquest 
than  the  Muscovite  monarchy  itself. 

This  inheritance  of  empire,  we  have  said,  forms  for  our 
England  of  to-day  as  great  a  moral  peril  as  ever  tasked  a 
great  people;  yet  it  is  but  one  of  the  great  problems  which 
surround  the  future  of  civilisation.  A  moral  peril  of  some 
different  kind  hangs  over  other  nations  too;  the  lust  of 
dominion,  the  pride  of  race,  the  thirst  of  fame  or  gain,  fill 
the  air  with  wars  and  rumours  of  wars.  Within  our  social 
system  there  rages  the  struggle  of  classes,  interests,  and  am- 
bitions; the  passion  for  wealth,  the  restlessness  of  want. 
The  future  of  industry,  the  cause  of  education,  social  justice, 
the  very  life  of  the  poor,  all  tremble  in  the  balance  in  our 
own  country,  as  in  other  countries:  this  way  or  that  way 
will  decide  the  well-being  of  generations  to  come. 

Are  these  tremendous  issues  to  be  left  to  themselves  or 
chance?  Is  it  enough  to  say  that  the  spirit  of  Progress  will 
work  them  right  in  the  end?  Do  self-will  and  self-love  ever 
restrain  themselves  by  an  enlightened  sense  of  their  own  true 
interest?  Verily  we  think  not;  and  for  this  reason  we  are 
not  willing  to  abandon  the  greatest  and  the  oldest  of  all 
human  forces  —  the  power  of  Religion.  On  religion,  to-day 
as  of  old,  there  hangs  the  future  of  mankind  for  good  or  for  evil. 


256  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

But  if  on  religion,  on  what  religion?  On  the  religions 
which  by  their  errors  and  their  failures  have  brought  us  to 
this  pass,  and  now  stand  aside  with  their  eyes  fixed  on  things 
above,  repeating  that  their  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world? 
We  more  and  more  need  a  religion  that  can  deal  with  this 
world,  which  has  something  to  say  to  the  intellectual  and 
social  problems  of  our  age,  which  can  show  us  how  to  live 
on  earth,  not  how  to  prepare  for  heaven.  Can  we  turn  to 
Christianity  in  its  latest  phase,  struggling  to  adapt  its  creed 
to  common  sense,  helpless  in  presence  of  our  social  disorders, 
and  actually  stimulating  the  passion  for  war  and  conquest? 
Or  shall  we  turn  to  the  Deisms  and  the  Theosophies  which 
are  even  more  devoid  of  social  doctrine,  more  impotent  to 
control  our  acts,  busy  with  metaphysical  ingenuities  about 
the  nature  of  the  Godhead  or  the  creation  of  the  world? 
Far  from  it.  We  need  a  Religion  that  is  neither  Mysticism 
nor  Metaphysics,  but  one  that  can  explain  and  enforce 
human  duty;  which  can  master  men  of  powerful  intellect 
and  commanding  character;  which  can  make  itself  felt  on 
society:  purify  it,  guide  it,  transform  it. 

To  what  can  we  turn,  in  our  wanderings  and  our  needs, 
but  to  the  ever-present  idea  of  Humanity  as  a  whole?  It 
recalls  us  to  the  sense  of  fellowship  and  social  duty;  it  lifts 
us  from  our  interests  in  the  petty  group  in  which  we  live,  to 
brotherhood  with  the  incalculable  host  which  peoples  the 
planet  j  it  takes  us  from  the  trivial  prize  of  to-day  to  the  cycle 
of  ages  that  make  the  past,  the  present,  and  the  future.  The 
multiplicity  of  human  interests  in  the  mass  restrains  and 
humbles  the  interest  of  the  unit;  the  vast  sequence  of  time 
reminds  us  how  we  grow  ever  to  a  higher  state.  We  set 
before  our  hopes  the  civilising  and  humanising  Power, 
gathering  force  in  each  new  age,  and  steadily  advancing  to 
the  good  and  the  true.     We  watch  it  with  our  aspirations  of 


EMPIRE   AND   HUMANITY  257 

to-day  back  to  the  wild  times  of  social  and  religious  war  in 
Europe,  thence  back  to  the  turmoil  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
back  as  it  emerges  out  of  systematic  war,  out  of  the  inhu- 
manity of  the  polytheistic  ages,  out  of  slavery,  out  of  caste, 
out  of  nomadism  and  fetichism  and  savagery,  out  of  can- 
nibalism, and  so  back  to  the  lowest  degradation  of  the  human 
type.  Humanity  has  sufficed  to  raise  herself,  by  slow  and 
certain  stages,  from  the  brutality  of  the  Bushman  to  the 
dignity  of  Shakespeare  and  Descartes.  Much  more  shall 
she  suffice  to  free  herself  from  the  debris  of  a  feudal  and  a 
military  epoch. 


I 


I 


PART   II 
SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 


1 


1 


■% 


SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

The  Second  Part  of  this  hook  is  occupied  with  questions  of 
Labour,  Unionism,  and  Socialism,  which  are  now  urgefit, 
and  promise  to  he  even  more  urgent  in  the  future.  Having 
been  closely  associated  for  forty -six  years  with  the  Labour 
Leaders  and  with  Industrial  Reforms,  I  now  collect,  in  what 
is  largely  an  autobiographic  volume,  a  few  of  the  Essays  and 
Addresses  that  I  made  public  on  various  occasions.  These 
were  in  no  sense  casual  utterances.  Being  all  based  on  the 
Positivist  theory  of  Capital  and  Labour,  which  I  have  held 
from  youth,  they  have  a  systematic  character.  And  at  the 
same  time  they  may  serve  to  mark  the  gradual  development  of 
public  opinion. 

In  i860  I  was  associated  at  the  Working  Men^s  College 
with  F.  D.  Maurice  and  his  colleagues,  Thomas  Hughes, 
J.  M.  Ludlow,  John  Ruskin,  Dr.  Furnivall,  and  many  others, 
teachers  and  students.  In  1862  I  joined  with  T.  Hughes, 
R.  H.  Hutton,  Godfrey  Lushington,  in  a  public  controversy 
upon  the  great  London  lock-out  in  the  Building  Trades,  and  I 
became  intimate  with  the  directors  of  the  great  Amalgamated 
Unions.  In  the  following  years  I  visited  the  northern  manu- 
facturing centres,  and  studied  the  Unions,  Co-operative, 
Owenite,    and    Industrial    movements    of   Lancashire    and 

Yorkshire. 

In  i86j,  without  my  knowledge  or  consent,  I  was  announced 
in  Parliament  as  a  Member  of  the  Trades  Union  Commission, 
on  which  I  served  in  the  years  1867-8-g;  and  I  drew  the 
Minority  Report,  which  became  the  basis  of  subsequent  Legis- 

261 


262  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

lation.  The  long  agitation  to  obtain  a  settlement  of  the  laws 
affecting  workmen,  together  with  frequent  visits  to  manufac- 
turing centres,  to  Trades  Union,  Co-operative,  and  other 
Labour  Congresses,  brought  me  into  close  relations  with  many 
working-class  leaders,  and  gave  me  an  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  working  of  their  societies.  In  188 j  I  organised  the  In- 
dustrial Remuneration  Conference,  founded  by  Robert  Miller 
of  Edinburgh,  of  which  Sir  Charles  Dilke  was  the  President, 
and  which  was  addressed  by  him,  by  Lord  Bramwell,  Mr. 
Arthur  J.  Balfour,  Lord  Brassey,  Sir  Robert  Giffen,  Mr.  John 
Burns,  Professor  Beesly,  Professor  A.  R.  Wallace,  and  others. 

As  President  of  the  English  Positivist  Committee  from 
i8jg,  I  continually  put  forward  the  industrial  scheme  of 
Auguste  Comte  on  the  platform  and  in  the  Press,  down  to  the 
settlement  of  the  Labour  legislation  in  igoj. 

The  six  Essays  in  this  Part  II.  deal  in  turn  with  the  "  Ortho- 
dox" Plutonomy,  which  I  repudiated  in  the  first  volume  of  the 
Fortnightly  Review  in  1865,  with  Trades  Unionism,  and  with 
Co-operation  —  all  three  written  in  the  same  year.  They  are 
followed  by  the  Address  given  to  the  Industrial  Conference  of 
i88y,  by  an  Essay  on  the  Socialist  type  of  Unionism,  i88g; 
and  finally  by  the  Address  on  Moral  and  Religious  Socialism 
of  1 89 1. 

This  sums  up  the  views  on  the  Labour  Problem  which  I 
have  consistently  maintained  for  upwards  of  forty  years  {1908). 


THE  LIMITS   OF   POLITICAL  ECONOMY 

(1865) 

On  the  foundation  of  the  Fortnightly  Review  in  1865,  by 
Anthony  Trollope,  W.  Bagehot,  George  H.  Lewes,  and 
George  Eliot,  I  was  invited  by  the  Editor,  G.  H.  Lewes, 
to  write  on  the  great  Iron  Trade  Dispute  in  Staffordshire. 
In  the  third  number,  June  1865, 1  wrote  the  present  Essay 
on  the  Limits  of  Political  Economy.  It  is,  I  think,  the 
earliest  systematic  criticism  of  the  entire  basis  of  the 
"Orthodox'^  Economy  by  a  student  of  that  so-called 
" science, ^^  who  was  in  close  relations  with  some  of  its 
ablest  professors,  and  in  complete  agreement  with  many 
of  its  theoretic  doctrines. 

The  criticism  was  not  at  all  derived  from  Carlyle's 
growls  about  the  ''dismal  science,'*  nor  from.  Ruskin's 
sentimental  diatribes  in  his  book  —  Unto  this  Last.  My 
views  were  based  on  Comte's  philosophic  proof  that 
Economic  dogmas  become  both  false  and  mischievous  when 
detached  from  Social  science  as  a  whole.  I  was  myself  a 
member  of  the  Political  Economy  Club,  and  was  in 
relations  with  John  Stuart  Mill,  Professor  Cairnes,  and 
other  eminent  economists.  I  fully  recognised  the  value  of 
many  economic  researches  if  kept  in  strict  subordina- 
tion to  Sociology;  but  I  earnestly  repudiated  the  claim 
to  erect  these  into  an  independent  science — much  less  to 
make  these  theories  practical  rules  of  society  and  life. 

263 


264  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

Now  that  the  old  Plutonomy  is  almost  a  thing  of  the 
past,  I  reissue  what  I  believe  was  one  of  the  earliest 
efforts  to  shake  off  its  tyranny  (igoS). 


The  "  phenomena  of  society  being  more  complicated  than  any 
other,  it  is  irrational  to  study  the  industrial  apart  from 
the  intellectual  and  moral."  —  Auguste  Comte. 

For  the  evils  which  beset  our  industrial  system  several  par- 
tial remedies,  and  but  one  general  remedy,  is  suggested. 
Trades  Unions,  courts  of  arbitration,  limited  partnership, 
co-operation,  are  obviously  remedies  both  limited  in  their 
sphere  and  remote  in  their  effect.  That  to  which  the  culti- 
vated public  agree  to  look  is  the  general  diffusion  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  economic  science.  It  becomes,  therefore,  essential 
to  know  what  economic  science  is;  what  are  its  limits;  and 
what  are  its  functions. 

Few  opinions  are  more  rooted  in  the  mind  of  our  industrial 
nation  than  this :  that  there  is  a  science  of  production,  defi- 
nite, distinct,  and  exact  —  the  axioms  of  which  are  as  uni- 
versal and  demonstrable  as  those  of  astronomy ;  the  practical 
rules  of  which  are  as  simple  and  familiar  as  those  of  arith- 
metic. Economists,  it  is  believed,  have  worked  out  a  sys- 
tem of  general  truths,  which  any  shrewd  man  of  business  can 
practically  apply.  We  are  very  proud  of  our  great  writers 
who  have  created  this  science,  and  not  a  little  fond  of  the 
skill  with  which  it  is  handled  by  newspapers,  speakers,  and 
men  of  business.  It  is  the  intellectual  feat  of  our  age,  the 
sign  of  our  civilisation,  and  the  cause  of  our  wealth. 

But  when  we  come  to  study  the  science,  we  certainly  do 
not  find  this  agreement  amongst  its  professors.  Agreement 
is  the  last  thing  they  think  of.  There  are,  indeed,  few  sub- 
jects of  human  thought  on  which  there  is  less.     There  are 


LIMITS   OF   POLITICAL  ECONOMY  265 

hardly  ten  generalisations  in  the  whole  science  on  which  all 
the  writers  are  at  one,  and  that  not  on  the  details  but  on  the 
first  principles,  not  on  intricate  points  of  practice  but  on  the 
general  laws  of  production. 

What  is  the  true  theory  of  rent?  Who  is  right  about 
currency?  What  are  the  laws  of  population?  Are  small 
farms  or  large  farms  best?  Does  the  peasant  proprietor 
thrive?  Define  the  "wages  fund."  What  decides  the  re- 
muneration of  labour?  State  some  of  the  laws  of  the  accu- 
mulation of  profits.  Give  the  ratio  of  the  relative  increase 
of  population,  and  the  means  of  subsistence.  What  are  the 
economical  results  of  direct  and  indirect  taxation?  of  strict 
entails?  of  trade  unions?  of  poor-laws?  of  Free  Trade? 
Let  us  suppose  these  questions  asked  from  a  body  of  econo- 
mists, and  we  should  have  them  at  cross-purposes  in  a  mo- 
ment. M'CuUoch  would  expose  "the  erroneous  views  of 
Smith,"  Ricardo  and  Malthus  would  confute  each  other, 
and  scarcely  one  would  admit  the  philosophical  bases  of 
Mr.  Mill.  We  find  ourselves  not  in  a  science  properly  so 
called  at  all,  but  in  a  collection  of  warm  controversies  on 
social  questions.  What  would  be  the  state  of  medicine  if 
physiologists  were  hotly  disputing  on  the  circulation  of  the 
blood? 

No  rational  economist  can  claim  for  his  subject  the  title 
of  an  independent  and  recognised  science.  He  is  content 
at  most  with  systematic  dissertations.  The  greatest  of  all 
since  the  founder  of  this  study  in  England,  Mr.  Mill,  is,  in 
truth,  not  an  economist  at  all.  He  is  a  social  philosopher, 
who  has  thought  and  written  on  all  the  chief  departments  of 
the  philosophy  of  society,  who  in  his  great  work  deals  with 
economic  laws  as  part  of  and  subordinate  to  social  laws. 
Neither  in  theory  nor  in  practice  has  this  powerful  thinker, 
much  less  have  his  profound  predecessors,  Hume,  Turgot, 


266  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

and  Adam  Smith,  ever  countenanced  the  notion  that  the 
laws  of  production,  as  a  whole,  can  be  studied  or  discovered 
apart  from  all  the  other  laws  of  society,  without  any  reference 
to  the  great  social  problems,  by  men  who  have  no  fixed 
notions  upon  them,  or  none  but  a  few  unverified  hypotheses ; 
who  are  without  a  system  of  politics,  a  theory  of  human 
nature,  a  philosophy  of  history,  or  a  code  of  social  duty. 

Unfortunately,  this  truth  has  not  been  generally  grasped, 
and  the  name  of  economist  has  been  claimed  by  men  whose 
qualifications  are  hmited  to  some  acquaintance  with  statistics 
and  a  talent  for  tabular  statements.  There  has  gone  abroad, 
too,  under  their  shelter,  a  very  prevalent  belief  that  economic 
questions  are  fixed  and  defined  as  no  other  social  problems 
are.  Men  who  hold  the  application  of  theory  to  politics  to 
be  mischievous  pedantry,  men  who  regard  the  science  of 
human  nature  as  an  atheist's  dream,  are  quite  content  to 
believe  that  one  fragment  of  it  is  a  science  by  itself ;  a  science 
so  simple  and  complete  that  practical  points  of  detail  can  be 
accurately  deduced  from  its  rules.  A  whole  literature  of 
spurious  economics  exists,  wherein  the  postulates  of  the  sub- 
ject, the  great  laws  of  human  nature,  are  gratuitously  assumed 
without  a  thought  or  a  doubt.  The  consequence  is  a  tissue 
of  statements  about  industry  which  are  as  true  to  fact  as 
Zadkiel's  almanack  is  true  to  events;  and  a  tissue  of  pre- 
tended laws  of  industry  by  which  selfishness  glosses  over  to 
itself  the  frightful  consequences  of  its  own  passions. 

The  truth  really  is  (and  a  very  moderate  reflection  ought 
to  show  it),  that  whatever  the  difficulties  of  a  systematic 
science  of  society,  the  same  difficulties  meet  the  science  of 
industrial  life;  that  all  the  cautions  which  are  needed  in 
applying  social  laws  to  action  cannot  be  dispensed  with  simply 
because  the  action  in  question  is  industry.  Secondly,  it  will 
appear  that  the  attempt  to  deal  with  the  facts  of  production 


LIMITS   OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  267 

separately  from  other  facts  of  society  can  be  carried  only  to  a 
very  limited  extent,  and  under  very  strict  conditions.  Thirdly, 
that  the  attempt  to  generalise  absolutely  from  certain  special 
phases  of  modern  civilisation  is  a  radical  and  very  dangerous 
error.  It  results  from  the  combined  effect  of  these  causes 
that  the  popular  conception  of  the  functions  of  Political 
Economy  is  very  wide  of  its  true  place  both  in  philosophy 
and  politics. 


Political  economy  professes  to  systematise  the  laws  of 
production  and   distribution.     It   analyses   the   creation  of 
wealth.     It  lays  down  the  theory  of  material  industry.     It 
is  obvious  that  every  act  of  production,  all  industry,  in  short, 
is  due  to  an  effort  of  the  human  will.     It  forms  a  certain  class 
of  the  things  that  men  do.     It  is  determined  by  all  the  com- 
bined motives  which  precede  action.     Men  do  not  labour  or 
accumulate  involuntarily  any  more  than  they  fight  or  pray 
involuntarily.     In  our  age  we  see  many  men  labouring  and 
accumulating  under  the  influence  of  one  leading  motive,  and 
we  can  hardly  conceive  this  motive  ceasing  to  be  powerful. 
But  in  one  bygone  age  we  should  have  seen  them  fighting 
under  a  dominant  motive ;    in  another  age,  praying  under 
a  dominant  motive ;    in  another,  doing  both  together  under  a 
motive  so  dominant  that  few  persons  then  could  conceive  it 
less  strong.     In  the  ages  of  faith,  fighting  and  praying  seemed 
to  come  by  instinct  from  "immutable  laws  of  society,"  to  be 
natural  results  of  uncontrollable  tendencies.     We  have  lived 
to  see  that  men  can  do  both  or  either  in  the  most  different 
ways,  under  totally  different  motives,  in  opposite  social  states, 
and  indeed  can  cease  in  a  great  measure  to  do  either. 

It  may  be  objected  that  a  certain  amount  of  labour  and 
accumulation  to  satisfy  the  physical  wants  of  life  is  necessary 


268  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

in  a  sense  in  which  no  other  form  of  activity  is.  Men  must 
overcome  hunger  and  cold  if  they  Uve  at  all.  Doubtless; 
but  the  Bushman  does  this,  and  so  does  the  Gipsy.  The 
minimum  is  too  small  to  be  worth  consideration.  All  between 
this  and  our  modern  industry  is  in  the  truest  sense  voluntary. 
For  all  practical  purposes,  then,  production  is  only  a  branch 
of  free  human  activity;  liable,  like  it,  to  every  modification 
which  altered  motives  produce.  Labour  and  accumulation 
might  be  almost  indefinitely  increased  or  diminished,  as  the 
motives  in  which  they  now  originate  were  stimulated  or 
declined.  They  might  also  remain  at  their  present  or  change 
to  any  other  level,  and  spring  from  a  totally  different  set  of 
motives,  and  under  totally  fresh  conditions.  Man  of  course 
is  limited  by  his  own  physical  powers  and  the  general  con- 
ditions of  matter ;  but  with  our  present  intellectual  resources 
these  limits  are  so  vast  in  civilised  countries,  that,  practically, 
man's  industrial  life  is  quite  at  his  own  disposal.  Produc- 
tion, accumulation,  and  distribution  might  be  varied  almost 
without  limit,  both  in  extent,  mode,  and  proportion,  provided 
we  could  vary  the  motives  which  actuate  conduct.  In  other 
words,  the  forms  of  our  industrial  life  —  the  laws  of  wealth, 
in  short  —  depend  on  the  sum  of  our  actual  civilisation. 

A  truth  so  simple  as  this  has  been  so  much  obscured  by 
economic  sophisms  that  a  little  illustration  may  not  be  out  of 
place.  In  the  first  place,  no  one  who  reflects  can  fail  to  see 
how  completely  our  present  industry  is  the  creation  of  our 
present  ideas  and  feelings.  Men  produce  and  accumulate 
incessantly  around  us  chiefly  from  the  influence  of  a  desire 
of  wealth  or  useful  things.  But  it  is  obvious  that  this  desire 
might  very  easily  become  incalculably  feebler,  and  that  pro- 
duction and  accumulation  might  be  indefinitely  less.  As  a 
matter  of  history,  we  know  that  in  almost  every  age  of  human 
life  it  has  been  far  weaker  than  with  us  now ;  and  that  it  is 


LIMITS   OF   POLITICAL   ECONOMY  269 

only  in  certain  fractions  of  one  race  of  human  kind  that  it  is 
as  strong  as  it  is  now.  When  we  compare  the  industrial 
energy  of  an  EngHshman  or  an  American  with  that  of  an 
Arab,  of  a  modern  European  with  that  of  an  ancient  Greek, 
we  can  see  hardly  any  limit  to  the  variety  of  degree  in  which 
the  love  of  wealth  may  stimulate  human  beings  to  action. 
Nor  is  it  even  the  invariable  associate  of  high  intelligence 
and  cultivation.  On  the  contrary,  classical  and  Oriental 
society  abound  with  examples  of  high  intellectual  condition, 
as  religious  society  throughout  the  world  abounds  with  ex- 
amples of  high  moral  condition,  with  a  minimum  of  pro- 
duction and  accumulation.  In  a  word,  the  instinct  and  the 
habit  of  production  are  just  as  variable  .as  human  nature. 

The  second  case,  that  production  and  accumulation  might 
follow  from  other  than  the  prevalent  motives  which  now 
largely  stimulate  them,  is  somewhat  less  obvious  but  not  less 
true.  In  vast  permanent  societies,  in  long  ages  of  history, 
populations  such  as  the  Egyptian  and  the  Indian,  under  a 
strict  caste  system,  have  shown  an  astonishing  degree  of 
industry,  directly  stimulated  by  habit,  social  feeling  and 
religious  duty,  and,  in  a  very  slight  degree,  by  personal  desire 
of  gain.  In  religious  societies  under  very  different  kinds  of 
faith,  very  active  industry,  on  a  scale  quite  decisive  as  an 
experiment,  has  been  stimulated  by  purely  religious  motives. 
Some  of  the  most  splendid  results  of  industry  ever  recorded, 
—  the  clearing  of  wildernesses;  vast  public  works,  such  as 
bridges,  monuments,  and  temples ;  the  training  of  whole  races 
of  savages  into  habits  of  toil,  —  have  been  accomplished  by 
purely  religious  bodies  on  purely  religious  motives,  by  monks, 
missionaries,  and  priests.  In  China,  in  which  there  is,  per- 
haps, the  most  universal  of  all  industries,  labour  is  stimulated 
by  motives  mainly  domestic,  partly  personal,  but  in  scarcely 
any  degree   by  the   desire   of  accumulation.    In  practical 


270  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

slavery,  which  we  must  never  forget  is  or  has  been  the  basis 
of  a  vast  portion  of  human  industry,  labour  is  obviously  due 
to  other  motives  than  that  of  the  acquisition  of  gain :  in  very 
low  cases,  to  force  and  fear ;  in  very  favourable  instances  of 
ancient  slavery  and  modern  serfdom,  partly  to  personal 
affection,  partly  to  habit,  as  we  often  see  in  the  domestic 
animals. 

These  are  the  extremes ;  but  between  these  cases  and  our 
own  industry  there  is  every  shade  of  motive  and  spirit  from 
which  systematic  industry  has  sprung.  We  are  all  familiar 
with  noble  instances  of  labour  in  every  sphere,  under  all  con- 
ditions, from  which  every  trace  of  personal  interest  has  been 
withdrawn.  It  would  be  as  degrading  to  suppose  that  the 
great  industrial  benefactors  of  mankind,  whether  inventors, 
capitalists,  or  labourers,  have  been  moved  by  the  mere  love 
of  acquisition,  as  that  our  great  intellectual  benefactors  have 
been  moved  by  mere  motives  of  vanity,  or  the  practical  by 
mere  thirst  for  power. 

Industry  has  never  been  so  systematically  stimulated  by 
motives  of  religious  duty  or  affection  as  some  other  forms  of 
activity  in  earlier  civilisations;  but  no  historical  observer 
would  deny  that  it  is  perfectly  possible  that  it  should  be.  If 
any  society  had  been  educated  for  labour  with  the  same 
consensus  of  moral  and  social  forces  which  trained  the  early 
Romans  for  war,  and  the  Israelites  in  the  desert  for  worship, 
we  should  have  had  the  case  of  a  people  in  whom  industry 
was  singularly  developed,  and  the  desire  of  gain  practically 
extinct.  In  a  word,  the  studies  of  human  nature  and  history 
combine  to  prove  that  industrial  activity  may  be  organised, 
and  in  a  great  degree  is  now  organised,  on  moving  princi- 
ples, as  various  and  complex  as  the  character  of  man  him- 
self. 

It  is  nothing  to  the  purpose  to  object  that  the  case  just 


LIMITS  OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  27 1 

suggested  is  possible  only  under  the  most  singular  conditions, 
and,  if  possible,  is  very  far  from  desirable.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  probability  of  our  seemg  a  state  of  society  in  which 
industry  should  be  solely  dependent  on  religious,  moral,  or 
social  motives.  Industry  and  accumulation  might  possibly 
be  diminished  by  any  sudden  admixture  of  such  motives. 
Industry,  as  a  whole,  might  exist  where  motives  of  self- 
interest  were  supplemented,  superseded,  and  controlled  by  a 
range  of  various  motives  in  almost  infinite  proportions.  We 
know  as  a  fact  that  whole  societies  and  races  of  men  have 
pursued  objects  far  less  accordant  with  human  nature  than 
industry,  under  the  influence  of  complex  motives,  derived 
from  many  forms  of  human  character.  We  know  as  a  fact 
that  men  have  given  themselves  to  industry  under  the  influ- 
ence of  every  form  of  it  alternately,  and  of  many  forms  in 
many  combinations.  It  would  be  as  ridiculous  to  place  in- 
dustry on  the  basis  of  one  special  kind  of  the  egoistic  instincts, 
or  on  all  together,  as  it  would  be  to  make  another  of  them 
the  sole  source  of  religion,  another  of  politics,  another  of 
thought.  Human  action,  of  which  industry  is  but  a  part,  is 
moved  by  the  sum  of  the  human  capacities  and  instincts ;  and 
of  these  such  as  minister  to  personal  enjoyment  are  not  sole 
or  paramount.  Nor  does  industry  depend  more  on  these 
latter  than  human  life  itself.  To  hold  it  to  be  inseparable 
from  them  is  possible  only  on  theories  of  human  nature  which 
revive  the  moral  sophisms  of  Hobbes,  or  the  political  cynicism 
of  Machiavelli. 

However  much  these  propositions  may  sound  like  truisms, 
it  may  be  doubted  if  their  full  meaning  is  present  to  those 
who  deal  with  the  labours  of  Economists,  or  indeed  to  Econo- 
mists themselves.  On  the  contrary,  the  logical  consequences 
may  seem  startling  to  most  of  them.  When,  for  instance,  it 
is  said  to  be  a  law  of  Political  Economy  that  the  rate  of  wages 


272  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

depends  on  the  demand  and  supply  of  labour ;  that  capitalists 
will  seek  to  pay  the  lowest,  and  workmen  to  obtain  the  high- 
est, possible  wages;  that  capital  will  seek  the  market  where 
there  is  the  greatest  percentage,  and  labour  the  market  where 
there  is  the  highest  remuneration,  —  all  that  is  meant  is,  that 
this  will  happen  where  or  so  long  as  the  love  of  gain,  the 
effective  desire  of  accumulation,  the  desire  of  useful  things, 
holds  precisely  the  same  relative  position  in  the  human 
motives  as  it  does  to-day  in  England  in  the  year  1865. 

The  law  is  gone  the  moment  this  position  is  changed. 
The  law  is  never  in  fact  absolutely  true.  This  particular 
motive  to  labour  varies  as  civilisation  varies  in  every  con- 
ceivable degree.  It  is  never  perhaps  wholly  absent.  It  is 
never  certainly  exclusively  dominant.  Perhaps  no  single 
case  can  be  found  of  one  capitalist  or  one  workman  whose 
industrial  conduct  is  never  influenced  by  some  motive  derived 
from  custom,  public  opinion,  sense  of  duty,  or  benevolence. 
There  have  been  cases  on  the  largest  scale  in  which  industrial 
energy  has  been  influenced  almost  solely  by  these,  or  one  of 
these.  Precisely  as  these  very  variable  motives  vary  in 
efficiency,  industry  will  be  more,  or  will  be  less,  under  the 
impetus  of  competition. 

The  limits  of  variation  in  both  directions  are  almost  in- 
calculable. We  see  it  in  the  difference  of  one  age  with 
another.  We  see  it  in  the  differences  of  one  people  with 
another.  And  we  see  it  in  the  differences  of  one  individual 
with  another.  If  all  capitalists  were  as  eager  for  accumula- 
tion as  some  rare  examples  are  now,  capital  might  be  enor- 
mously increased.  If  all  capitalists  were  as  little  under  the 
influence  of  acquisitive  motives  as  some  whom  we  know, 
accumulation  might  be  vastly  reduced,  other  influences  re- 
maining the  same.  Many  great  employers  of  labour  (such 
as  landed  proprietors)  are  in  a  very  slight  degree  governed 


LIMITS   OF  POLITICAL   ECONOMY  273 

by  competition  in  the  management  of  their  estates.  Many 
workmen,  as  agricultural  labourers,  are  almost  solely  under 
the  impulse  of  habit.  In  parts  of  Europe  men  of  activity 
and  intelligence  are  so  little  under  the  influence  of  competi- 
tion, that  markets  separated  by  a  few  miles  have  widely 
different  prices. 

We  all  know  that  in  many  of  our  daily  dealings  we  are  very 
largely  out  of  its  sphere.  The  wages  of  the  superior  domes- 
tic servants  are  comparatively  beyond  it.  In  a  great  many 
occupations  (as  in  the  public  services,  arts,  and  sciences)  the 
influence  of  competition  tells  only  very  slowly  and  indirectly. 
It  cannot  therefore  be  the  sole  regulator  there.  In  fact,  there 
is  perhaps  no  single  trade  in  which  the  force  of  competition, 
left  without  restraint,  would  not  diminish  wages.  It  is  also 
certain  that  the  annals  of  the  human  race  exhibit  competition 
as  a  paramount  force  only  in  certain  parts  of  Europe  in  very 
recent  times.  These  laws,  therefore,  of  political  economy 
depend  on  an  assumption  about  human  character  and  society, 
which  is  totally  untrue  of  the  great  bulk  of  human  history, 
and  not  exactly  true  of  any  single  community  or  individual 
even  now. 

What  is  really  meant  by  saying  that  wages  and  profits 
follow  such  and  such  a  law,  is  to  state  that  which  is  an  approxi- 
mate generalisation  of  one  particular  form  of  civilisation.  Of 
course  this  can  in  no  sense  be  a  law  of  human  society.  If  it 
were,  it  would  be  true  of  all  times  and  under  all  conditions. 
The  law  that  the  changes  of  human  life  depend  on  the  changes 
of  human  opinion,  is  true  universally.  It  is  true  of  the  sav- 
age ;  it  is  true  of  the  child.  It  is  based  on  a  study  of  human 
nature  as  a  whole,  and  of  human  history  as  a  whole.  But  it 
is  obvious  that  most  of  the  laws  of  Political  Economy  utterly 
fail  to  be  realised  amongst  some  savage  and  some  Oriental 
races.     Still  more  signally  do  they  fail  if  applied  to  an  affec- 


274  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

tionate  family  or  a  pure  religious  community.     There  the 
assumption  on  which  they  rest  has  no  place. 

The  laws  therefore  are  entirely  relative  to  the  particular 
state  of  civilisation.  Unquestionably,  approximate  generali- 
sations, having  strict  reference  to  a  form  of  society  we  are 
studying,  are  of  great  value,  —  but  only  on  the  condition  that 
we  never  forget  their  relative  character.  The  laws  of  political 
economy  are  essentially  abstract  and  hypothetical.  In  them 
man  is  conceived  under  conditions  in  which  he  is  never 
actually  found,  and  which  indeed  could  not  be  actually  realised 
whilst  human  nature  remains  what  it  is.  Political  Economy 
professes  to  exhibit  man  exclusively  as  a  producing  animal, 
which  in  fact  he  never  is,  and  under  the  influence  of  special 
motives,  by  which  he  is  never  exclusively  actuated.  Social 
institutions  generally,  moral  impulses  altogether,  by  the  con- 
ditions of  the  subject,  are  excluded.  Otherwise  Political 
Economy  would  be  Social  or  Moral  Philosophy.  Political 
Economy,  therefore,  has  two  postulates  —  production  as  the 
sole  end,  Competition  as  the  sole  motive  —  postulates  of 
which  the  human  race  and  its  history  can  show  no  actual 
example. 

Without  doubt  this  may  be  no  obstacle  to  the  great  value 
of  these  theories  to  the  student.  The  intellectual  or  the 
moral  forces  might  be  similarly  studied.  But  the  great, 
indeed  the  sole  value  of  these  special  studies,  depends  on 
their  relative  character  being  constantly  kept  in  view.  It  may 
be  asserted,  and  is  no  doubt  true,  that  many  spheres  of  in- 
dustry are  so  far  under  the  rule  of  Competition  that  it  may 
practically  be  said  to  regulate  them.  Broad  generalisations 
may  fairly  be  based  on  what  is  the  efficient  rule.  It  may  be 
said  also  that  this  rule  of  Competition  is  the  best,  the  most 
perfect  condition  of  society,  essential  to  the  ultimate  happi- 
ness of  mankind,  and  destined  to  be  developed  indefinitely 


LIMITS   OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  275 

in  the  future.     It  may  be.     But  this  is  precisely  the  question 
which  no  economist,  as  such,  is  able  to  decide.     Both  these 
assumptions  are  vital  problems  in  the  general  philosophy  of 
society.     This  and  this  alone  can  offer  a  reasonable  answer. 
The  economist  may  be  able  to  decide  what  is  the  law  of 
civilisation,  what  is  the  destiny  of  society,  what  are  the  con- 
ditions of  happiness,  provided  he  has  satisfied  his  mind  on 
the  theory  of  society,  of  history,  of  morals,  —  of  human  nature 
as  a  whole  and  human  society  as  a  whole,  —  provided  he  be 
a  social  philosopher,  but  only  thus.    The  economist  may  be 
able  to  judge  to  what  degree  in  a  particular  society  competi- 
tion is  a  dominant  motive ;  where  it  is,  where  it  is  not,  para- 
mount;   how  far  it  is  interwoven  with  social  institutions; 
what  in  each  case  is  its  relative  importance  as  compared  with 
other  influences  —  provided  he  has  analysed  society  as  well 
as  industry,  and  has  traced  the  manifold  ramifications  of 
human  activity  —  provided  he  be  a  politician  and  a  moralist 
as  well  as  an  economist,  but  scarcely  otherwise.    Without 
this  knowledge  his  subject-matter  will  be  liable  to  variations 
which  he  not  only  cannot  explain,  but  which  he  cannot  detect. 
He  is  working  out  problems  depending  on  unknown  quanti- 
ties which  are  constantly  varying  in  relative  value.     None  of 
his  terms  are  constants  or  have  a  fixed  power,  but  they  some- 
times represent  one,  and  sometimes  another ;  and  he  has  no 
means  of  ascertaining  when  this  power  is  changed. 

It  is  essential  to  remember  that  in  these  industrial  problems 
the  unknown  quantities  are  never  constant,  never  regular, 
and  never  calculable  by  the  economist  as  such.  He  cannot 
give  his  solutions  in  terms  of  his  data,  leaving  his  unknown 
quantities  for  after  investigation.  Throughout  every  stage 
of  his  calculations  new  quantities  may  appear,  which  may, 
or  may  not,  affect  the  result.  A  man  may  sit  down  and  cal- 
culate the  law  of  some  branch  of  industry ;  he  may  tabulate 


276  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

laboriously  the  data  of  a  certain  place  or  time  where  the  rule 
of  competition  was  almost  paramount,  and  then  deduce  an 
approximate  result  in  relation  to  these  data.  The  tone  of 
civilisation,  we  may  suppose,  is  changed ;  a  new  set  of  ideas, 
habits,  and  principles  is  introduced  (matters  wholly  beyond 
the  range  of  the  economist)  —  the  law  altogether  vanishes. 
When  this  change  occurs,  why  it  occurs,  what  is  its  result, 
are  questions  to  which  the  economist  has  no  clue  whatever. 
Yet  without  it  his  reasoning  is  a  mere  exercise  in  logic.  To 
give  it  scientific  truth  or  practical  value  he  must  have  some 
general  conceptions  about  the  unknown  quantities  —  re- 
ligious, moral,  social  ideals  —  about  the  other  motives  of 
human  character  and  forms  of  human  life.  In  short,  he 
must  be  guided  by  reference  to  civilisation  as  a  whole.  In 
other  words,  economic  researches  have  neither  use  nor  reality, 
save  as  they  are  guided  by  social  philosophy. 

II 

This  brings  us  to  the  objections  which  Mr.  Mill  has  urged 
to  the  strictures  of  Comte  upon  political  economy.  He  in- 
sists that  economic  studies  can  be  perfectly  well  carried  on 
separately ;  that  science  has  been  largely  aided  by  indepen- 
dent investigations  into  a  particular  class  of  phenomena,  and 
by  abstract  reasoning  about  a  special  order  of  conceptions. 
He  quotes,  with  approval,  M.  Littre's  (or  rather  M.  Comte's) 
admirable  analogy  of  the  industrial  phenomena  of  society  to 
the  nutritive  functions  in  biology.  He  tells  us  that  as  the 
science  of  life  has  been  largely  promoted  by  the  study  of 
nutrition,  hypothetically  conceived  as  independent,  so  the 
science  of  society  may  be  greatly  advanced  by  the  study  of 
production  conceived  in  the  abstract  apart.  Now,  without 
defending  the  attacks  of  Comte  upon  economists  in  general 


LIMITS   OF   POLITICAL   ECONOMY  277 

(attacks  founded  on  social  rather  than  intellectual  grounds, 
on  their  popular  influence  rather  than  their  logical  errors), 
the  answer  of  the  disciples  of  Comte  would  be  something  of 
this  kind :  Economic  researches  may  to  a  great  extent  be 
carried  on  independently,  but  only  as  a  branch  of  social 
philosophy,  and  therefore  not  by  mere  economists. 

So  far  as  a  general  theory  of  society  requires  the  laws  of 
production  to  be  analysed  apart,  so  far  the  economic  laws 
are  a  separate  branch  of  thought.  What  positivism  would 
condemn  would  be,  that  mere  statisticians,  without  any  fixed 
notion  of  social  laws,  and  without  any  reference  to  their 
paramount  effect,  should  create  a  body  of  isolated  generalisa- 
tions. Comte  never  condemned  the  use  of  abstract  methods 
and  sustained  hypotheses  in  investigating  the  laws  of  produc- 
tion by  themselves  —  on  the  contrary,  he  largely  uses  these 
methods  himself;  but  he  would  insist  that  it  should  be  done 
as  a  branch  of  the  superior  science  of  society.  If  economists 
were  not  all  actually  social  philosophers,  the  least  that  would 
be  required  of  them  would  be  a  very  clear  and  strict  notion 
of  the  limits,  the  relativity,  and  the  subordination  of  their 
study. 

The  analogy  of  M.  Littr6  is  beautifully  just.  Unques- 
tionably the  nutritive  functions  can  be  investigated  separately 
in  biology;  but  only  by  a  biologist,  and  only  as  bearing  on 
the  science  of  biology.  What  would  happen  if  nutrition  were 
to  be  dealt  with  by  men  wholly  ignorant  of  the  other  functions 
of  life,  who  hardly  believed  that  they  were  capable  of  scien- 
tific treatment?  Precisely  what  has  happened  when  statis- 
ticians attempted  to  solve  the  problems  of  production.  When 
biology  was  struggling  into  life  as  a  science,  there  were  just 
such  a  set  of  specialists,  and  the  chemical  theory  of  nutrition 
was  the  result.  The  views  of  the  pure  economist  are  pre- 
cisely such  a  chemical  explanation  of  the  nutrition  of  society. 


278  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

Conceive  a  science  of  the  Stomach !  And  a  science  of  the 
stomach  created  by  men  who  rather  doubted  whether  there 
was  such  a  thing  as  a  nervous  system,  men  who  had  vague 
ideas  about  the  circulation  of  the  blood !  The  theory  of 
digestion  can  be  roughly  sketched  without  much  reference 
to  the  general  system  of  life ;  so  can  the  theory  of  production 
be  sketched  apart  from  the  general  social  conditions.  The 
chemical  and  mechanical  processes  in  digestion  may  be 
analysed  and  reduced  to  a  system ;  as  may  also  their  chemical 
and  mechanical  results.  They  can  be  even  reproduced  and 
imitated  partially. 

The  laws  of  production  can  likewise  be  systematised  so  far 
as  they  depend  on  the  simple  rule  of  competition,  and  their 
results  may  be  systematised  so  far  as  this  rule  can  be  supposed 
universal.  But  this  economic  theory  is  not  the  true  theory  of 
production  any  more  than  the  chemical  is  the  true  theory  of 
digestion.  Digestion  never  in  the  living  frame  takes  place 
in  purely  chemical  ways,  and  production  never  in  the  living 
society  takes  place  under  the  sovereign  rule  of  Competition. 
A  theory  of  digestion  and  of  nutrition  we  may  have,  but  only 
when  the  theories  of  the  nervous,  the  vascular,  and  the 
glandular  systems  are  complete,"  only  from  men  who  can 
grasp  and  trace  the  complex  combination  of  all  in  compound 
processes;  who  have  watched  the  action  of  nerves  on  secre- 
tions, of  blood  on  nerves,  of  gases  upon  blood;  who  know 
how  fibre  is  added  to  fibre,  how  laminae  of  bone  are  deposited 
around  their  centres ;  who  can  conceive  the  living  organism ; 
who  know  life  as  a  whole. 

Once,  in  the  infancy  of  thought,  men  poring  over  a  few 
dry  bones  may  have  fancied  they  could  build  up  out  of  them 
at  least  a  theory  of  the  skeleton  by  itself.  They  little  thought 
that  no  rational  osteology  could  exist  until  a  theory  of  the 
blood  had  been  mechanically,  chemically,  and  biologically 


LIMITS   OF   POLITICAL  ECONOMY  279 

established.  So  too,  men,  in  some  charnel  houses  of  society, 
have  built  up  out  of  the  dry  bones  of  the  social  organism  a 
crude  theory  of  production  on  the  mechanical  basis  of  Com- 
petition. A  true  theory  of  production  we  may  have  one  day ; 
but  only  on  the  completion  of  the  various  constituents  of  the 
social  science ;  when  the  play  of  human  motives  and  the  order 
of  the  human  instincts  is  definitely  solved;  when  the  Social 
Organism  is  known  as  a  whole,  and  is  felt  to  have  a  single 
and  intelligible  life. 

Mr.  Mill's  great  work  itself  is  a  cardinal  proof  that  if  the 
facts  of  production  can  be  separately  analysed,  it  must  be 
by  the  guidance  and  aid  of  a  social  philosophy.  He  is  not 
an  economist,  but  a  social  philosopher;  and  his  Political 
Economy  is  simply  a  branch  of  his  general  system  of  Society. 
A  large  portion  of  his  treatise  is  occupied  with  reasonings 
which  are  strictly  political;  and  there  are  no  portions  more 
impressive  than  those  which  are  strictly  moral.  His  views 
rest  upon  doctrines  respecting  human  character  and  institu- 
tions which  he  has  systematically  expounded  in  all  their 
leading  branches.  His  theory  of  industry  is  scarcely  con- 
ceivable by  one  who  has  not  mastered  his  general  theory  of 
life.  He  is  far  from  confining  his  view  to  the  actual  forms  of 
industry.  Production,  as  he  conceives  it,  would  rest  on  social 
and  moral  changes  vaster  than  those  which  separate  the 
Middle  Ages  from  ourselves. 

It  is  hardly  recognised  yet  how  grand  a  transformation  of 
society  underlies  these  apparent  economic  theories.  There 
are  two  great  questions  which  so  pervade  all  industry  that 
there  is  scarcely  an  economic  problem  into  which  they  do  not 
vitally  enter.  These  are  Population  and  Immovable  Prop- 
erty. How  far  do  economists  and  the  public  adopt  the  theo- 
ries of  Mr.  Mill  on  Reproductive  Abstinence  ?  Yet  it  lies  at 
the  root  of  all  his  doctrines  on  Industry.    What  economist 


28o  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

and  what  politician  accepts  his  view  that  landed  property 
in  England  is  far  from  fulfilling  the  conditions  which  render 
its  existence  economically  justifiable,  and  that  in  Ireland  it 
does  not  do  so  at  all  ?  Yet  the  value  of  a  great  part  of  his 
industrial  laws  depends  on  this,  which  rests  on  an  axiom  in 
the  general  theory  of  social  life.  Mr.  Mill's  speculations  on 
population  and  landed  property  are  important  chiefly  be- 
cause they  rest  on  profound  moral  and  social  truths.  But 
what  would  be  the  value  of  the  speculations  of  a  mere  statis- 
tician who  had  no  such  guide  and  no  such  preparation? 
And  who  among  statisticians  has? 

There  exists  an  entire  literature  on  the  subject  of  popula- 
tion, from  which  moral  causes  are  as  effectually  excluded  as 
if  Man  were  a  form  of  aphis.  But  moral  causes  are  almost 
decisive  in  questions  of  population.  Theoretically,  the  popu- 
lation of  the  world  in  a  few  generations  of  unlimited  breeding 
could  stretch  from  the  earth  to  the  moon.  Theoretically,  if 
the  human  race  was  in  the  religious  condition  of  St.  Bernard, 
it  might  cease  with  the  actual  generation.  Every  variation 
in  population  between  these  scarcely  conceivable  limits  is 
due  to  moral,  political,  and  social  circumstances,  and  in  a 
very  minor  degree  to  physical.  Yet  these  variations  are  our 
important  data.  The  effect  of  population  is  the  one  cardinal 
quantity  in  every  economic  problem.  What  then  is  the  ra- 
tionality of  economic  problems  without  a  general  theory  of 
population?  But  a  theory  of  population  is  essentially  a 
domestic  question.  It  is  vitally  a  question  about  Family. 
The  form  of  marriage,  the  position  of  women,  the  moral 
duties  of  the  pair,  purity,  continence,  are  certainly  the  primary 
theories  to  be  established.  Without  these,  theories  of  popu- 
lation may  be  constructed  in  the  abstract;  but  they  cannot 
have  much  practical  utility.  Theories  of  locomotion  might 
be  constructed  in  the  abstract;  but  they  would  not  carry  us 


LIMITS   OF   POLITICAL  ECONOMY  28 1 

far  if  the  theorist  paid  no  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  medium 
of  motion  might  be  either  earth,  air,  or  water. 

Few  economic  problems  have  been  more  debated,  or  are 
more  important,  than  that  of  the  cultivation  of  land.  The 
systems  of  peasant  proprietors,  of  landlords,  of  farmers,  of 
metayers,  of  cottiers,  form  a  singular  instance  of  a  ground 
where  economists  contradict  each  other  not  only  in  their 
conclusions,  but  as  to  the  facts  from  which  they  reason.  But 
there  is  a  question  which  underlies  the  whole  problem,  which 
is  the  social  ground  of  property  and  the  appropriation  of  land. 
No  one  does,  no  one  can  treat  this  fundamental  political 
principle  as  a  purely  economic  question.  The  first  thing  a 
rational  philosophy  has  to  do  is  to  establish  the  basis  of 
Property ;  the  rights,  the  duties,  the  relations  of  proprietors ; 
the  political,  social,  and  moral  functions  which  ownership  in 
land  implies.  Before  this  is  done,  or  at  least  unless  this  is 
done  also,  what  is  the  use  of  the  mere  economic  side  of  the 
question?  It  is,  as  we  have  said,  the  mere  digestive  side  of 
an  organic  problem  of  health.  Economists  have  pretty  well 
proved  that  a  very  good  cultivation  is  attainable  economically 
under  any  of  the  land  systems.  They  recommend  one  rather 
than  another  for  political,  social,  and  moral  reasons.  A  large 
portion  of  Mr.  Mill's  treatise,  at  any  rate,  is  thus  occupied. 
But  it  would  not  be  of  the  slightest  value  unless  he  were  at 
the  same  time  a  profound  student  of  political,  social,  and 
moral  truth. 

When  it  is  said  that  the  rule  of  competition  and  self-interest 
is  so  far  practically  the  rule  of  modern  society  as  to  be  a 
sufficient  basis  for  economic  laws,  it  may  fairly  be  asked  if 
these  two  great  elements  of  Population  and  Property  —  one 
of  them  dependent  mainly  on  moral  standards,  the  other  on 
political  institutions  —  do  not  radically  affect  every  problem 
in  turn.     Every  other  element  of  economy  may  be  shown  to 


282  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

be  largely  under  the  influence  of  some  moral  or  some  social 
force.  But  the  economist  excludes  these  from  his  enquiries. 
What  he  does,  therefore,  is  to  isolate  for  study  a  special  class 
of  complex  phenomena,  and  then  to  isolate  for  his  explanation 
of  them  a  special  class  of  the  conditions  on  which  they  depend. 
The  relative  force  of  the  other  phenomena,  and  that  of  the 
other  conditions  of  all  the  phenomena,  remain  all  the  time 
variable  but  unknown.  To  assume  that  they  are  fixed,  to 
assume  them  of  a  certain  force,  to  assume  them  to  be  small, 
is  simply  to  assume  the  problems  which  lie  at  the  root  of 
human  society.  The  economist  has  not  only  a  special  class 
of  facts  to  deal  with,  but  he  has  to  refer  these  to  a  special  class 
of  causes.  An  astronomer  might  find  it  convenient  to  work 
out  the  law  of  the  centrifugal  tendency  of  the  earth;  but  a 
mere  calculator  could  do  nothing  of  the  kind.  And  assuredly 
the  astronomer  would  not  do  so  unless  the  centripetal  ten- 
dency were  a  known  or  certainly  a  fixed  force. 

When,  therefore,  the  economist  lays  down  a  law  respecting 
wages,  for  instance,  based  on  modem  civilisation  and  com- 
petition, or  on  anything  but  laws  of  human  character  and 
society,  what  he  does  comes  to  this :  He  states  a  proposition 
about  human  action  which  can  only  apply  to  states  of  society 
with  habits  and  institutions  exactly  like  that  before  him,  and 
which  would  be  true  of  that  particular  state  of  society  if  man- 
kind acted  upon  certain  special  motives,  which  they  never 
exclusively  do.  Truly  a  somewhat  conditional  and  hypo- 
l__  thetical  law !  Very  useful  possibly  to  the  social  enquirer, 
but  of  small  value  to  the  man  of  business.  A  powerful  and 
universal  moral  stimulus  might,  it  is  conceivable,  dispose 
all  capitalists  to  give  just  the  same  labour  and  care  to  their 
business  as  they  do,  and  yet  consume  of  the  profits  no  more 
than  a  common  labourer.  They  could  then,  if  they  pleased, 
increase  the  wages  of  labour  largely,  population  under  moral 


LIMITS  OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  283 

restraint  not  increasing.  A  powerful  and  universal  political 
stimulus  might  also  dispose  all  labourers  to  force  them  to  do 
so,  and,  in  fact,  make  the  capitalists  the  serfs  of  the  labourers. 
In  either  of  these  cases,  and  they  may  be  approached  in  in- 
finite degrees,  the  law  of  wages  would  cease  to  apply.  Nor 
can  the  economist  give  us  the  slightest  test  as  to  when  this 
tendency  might  begin,  what  would  cause  it,  what  could  stop 
it  —  whether  it  is  good  or  bad,  whether  it  is  general  or  partial. 
All  that  he  can  give  us  is  the  following :  —  The  actual  rate  of 
wages  now  and  formerly,  some  of  the  causes  on  which  they 
depend  (value  unknown),  and  what  wages  would  tend  to  be 
if  something  happened  which  never  happens. 

It  is  quite  true  that  there  is  a  certain  order  of  industrial 
questions  which  are  in  no  degree  affected  by  variation  of 
motive.  The  purely  physical  analysis  of  capital,  labour, 
production,  and  accumulation  is  true  of  every  body  of  men 
in  all  ages,  of  a  single  family,  and  of  a  horde  of  savages. 
These  are  the  fundamental  conditions  of  all  material  efforts, 
and  are  closely  dependent  on  physical  truths.  These,  there- 
fore, are  true  laws  of  society.  So  far  political  economy  is  a 
branch  of  an  independent  and  a  real  science.  But  no  farther. 
Such  laws  as  are  wholly  free  from  the  influence  of  moral 
causes  can  be  exactly  stated  whilst  the  moral  forces  are  im- 
known.  Such  laws  as  refer  to  subjects  which  are  affected  by 
moral  causes  (the  influence  of  these  being  unknown  or  neg- 
lected) can  be  nothing  but  hypothetical.  But  these  true  laws 
of  production  are  very  few  and  very  general.  They  are 
rather  the  axioms  and  conditions  of  the  study  than  the 
theorems.  They  occupy  in  Mr.  Mill's  treatise  only  about 
one-third  of  the  first  volume.  They  are  of  deep  interest  to 
all  who  think  about  society,  but  they  are  general  philosophic 
analyses,  which  are  of  small  practical  value,  and  are  scarcely 
understood  by  the  public.    These  are  not  the  economic  laws 


284  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

to  which  men  appeal  as  the  true  guide  of  life.  The  Political 
Economy  which  really  acts  upon  men's  minds  is  the  Economy 
which  is  concerned  with  Distribution.  It  is  the  laws  of  Dis- 
tribution which  men  seek  to  know  and  to  enforce.  But  into 
all  of  these  the  moral  and  the  social  forces,  motives,  institu- 
tions, habits,  invariably  enter.  To  the  economist,  therefore, 
the  laws  of  Distribution  are  purely  hypothetical,  and  conse- 
quently have  a  theoretic  but  no  direct  practical  value.    . 

Ill 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  define  the  limits  within  which 
political  economy  can  be  pursued  as  an  independent  study. 
In  the  first  place,  so  far  as  physical  conditions  go,  and  up  to 
the  point  where  moral  conditions  begin,  strict  scientific  laws 
can  be  established.  These  answer  exactly  to  the  chemical 
conditions  which  limit  the  study  of  the  nutritive  functions, 
or  the  mechanical  conditions-  which  govern  the  laws  of  gravi- 
tation in  physics.  But  even  here  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  value  of  these  economic  laws  depends  on  the  truth  of  the 
physical  premises.  The  economist  will  be  unable  even  to 
analyse  the  formation  of  capital,  or  the  results  of  labour,  or 
the  conservation  of  wealth,  unless  he  have  the  requisite 
knowledge  of  physics,  of  vegetable,  of  animal  life.  Directly 
the  data  of  the  study  become  affected  by  moral  conditions, 
the  conclusions  of  the  economist  as  such  cease  to  be  scientific 
laws,  and  are  only  hypotheses.  Whether  these  hypotheses 
approach  reality,  whether  they  can  be  of  the  slightest  use, 
can  only  be  determined  by  a  systematic  study  of  the  moral 
conditions.  That  is  to  say,  the  test  of  the  rationality  of  these 
speculations  is  that  they  be  relative  to  social  science.  They 
may  be  carried  on  independently  to  any  extent  which  this 
science  may  require,  but  they  can  only  be  carried  on  reason- 
ably under  its  constant  guidance.    It  must  be  done,  as 


LIMITS   OF   POLITICAL   ECONOMY  285 

Aristotle  would  say,  a>9  r)  TroXtriKr]  Troc^a-eie  kuI  ttoXltlkw. 
It  is  legitimate  in  the  hands  of  the  social  philosopher  for  the 
purposes  of  social  science. 

Under  these  conditions  it  is  of  great  importance  that  these 
speculations  should  be  produced.  But  being  hypotheses, 
they  are  of  no  practical  application.  To  pass  from  true 
abstract  laws  of  society  to  practical  injunctions  is  the  most 
arduous  task  of  the  intellect.  To  pass  to  them  from  limited 
hypotheses  would  be  raving  madness.  Every  science  uses 
such  abstract  fictions  with  advantage;  but  it  never  applies 
them  to  practice.  A  physiologist  might  find  it  desirable  to 
consider  the  body  from  the  stomachic  point  of  view;  to 
throw  aside  all  organs  but  one,  and  to  conceive  the  human 
frame  as  a  simple  belly.  But  his  labours  would  have  little 
practical  use  except  to  a  community  of  Amoebae.  In  early 
stages  of  a  science  these  fictions  are  wonderfully  suggestive, 
as  were  the  circular  hypotheses  of  planetary  movements,  and 
the  historical  cycles  of  Vico.  In  the  maturity  of  a  science 
they-  are  powerful  instruments  of  reasoning,  as  the  hypotheses 
of  variation  in  the  theory  of  development.  But  until  the 
other  branches  of  the  science  are  similarly  advanced,  and  the 
rest  of  the  conditions  equally  understood,  their  value  is  alto- 
gether doubtful.  To  pursue  them  by  themselves  is  mere 
waste  of  time;  to  systematise  them  apart  is  pedantry;  to 
promulgate  them  as  realities  is  a  crime.  The  business  of 
the  specialist  is  with  facts,  not  with  hypotheses.  If  he  thinks 
that  good  can  come  from  the  crude  registration  of  phenom- 
ena, from  practising  imaginary  calculations  on  fragmentary 
data,  let  him  be  careful  that  no  man  look  on  these  undigested 
tables  as  true  generalisations;  that  society  be  not  poisoned 
by  mistaking  his  idle  hypotheses  for  absolute  laws. 

There  is  another  condition  which  it  is  essential  to  remem- 
ber.    The  higher  the  nature  of  the  subject,  the  more  complex 


286  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

it  is.  The  facts  of  society  are,  therefore,  more  closely  inter- 
woven and  dependent  on  each  other  than  any  other  facts. 
The  abstractions  which  are  easy  in  astronomy  are  less  so  in 
chemistry;  they  become  difficult  in  biology;  they  are  often 
impossible  in  sociology.  The  ramifications  of  society  are 
more  intricate  by  far  than  those  of  the  body,  the  multiplicity 
more  wondrous,  the  balance  of  functions  more  delicate. 
Strange  as  is  the  harmony  of  the  physical  organism  through- 
out every  organ  and  system  down  to  the  microscopic  cell  or 
nerve-fibre  —  making  all  one  life  —  it  is  nothing  to  the  unity 
of  the  social  organism  in  its  infinity,  its  sympathy,  its  variety ; 
wherein  each  individual  soul,  each  individual  fibre  of  each 
soul,  takes  and  gives  its  share  in  the  common  being. 

There  is  a  second  consequence.  The  more  complex  are 
the  phenomena  the  more  they  are  modifiable.  And  of  all, 
the  most  modifiable  are  the  social.  The  variations  of  society 
in  the  past  seem  infinite.  They  are  no  less  infinite  in  the 
future.  There  is  no  institution  and  no  instinct  which  has  not 
varied  vastly  in  influence,  in  form,  and  in  relative  impor- 
tance. Every  variation  in  each  institution  and  in  each  in- 
stinct tells  upon  the  whole  society.  Each  variation  of  the 
whole  society  tells  upon  each  institution,  and  each  instinct. 
The  possible  combinations  are  simply  infinite.  When, 
therefore,  we  isolate  for  study  one  institution  or  one  instinct, 
or  a  set  of  institutions  and  instincts,  in  the  midst  of  this  com- 
plex variable  whole,  we  are  dealing  with  one  combination 
where  the  possible  combinations  are  countless ;  we  are  work- 
ing out  problems  with  the  knowledge  of  a  perturbation  in 
our  subject,  where  the  perturbations  are  known  to  be  infinite 
in  number  and  in  force.  So  a  worm  might  study  the  influ- 
ence of  climate  on  vegetation  ! 

Now  it  is  this  amazing  interdependence  of  the  social  forces 
on  each  other,  and  their  no  less  amazing  capacity  for  adapta- 


LIMITS  OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  287 

tion,  which  the  popular  conception  of  Political  Economy 
most  completely  misconceives.  Amidst  forces  and  condi- 
tions infinite,  the  effect  of  one  on  the  whole  is  never  para- 
mount. Each  force  may  be  stimulated,  neutralised,  modi- 
fied, to  an  indefinite  extent.  Very  similar  results  may  follow 
from  very  different  conditions.  Almost  similar  conditions 
may  lead  to  widely  different  results.  The  thing  has  been 
done  constantly  in  politics.  In  this  age,  the  saturnalia  of 
specialists,  pedants  are  continually  giving  us  theories  of  the 
effect  of  this  or  that  institution,  and  show  how  the  welfare 
of  nations  depends  on  a  representative  chamber  or  a  free  press 
or  adult  suffrage.  We  are  getting  to  feel  that  the  welfare  of 
nations  depends  on  a  healthy  social  system  which  is  the  sum 
of  a  multitude  of  moral  and  social  forces.  We  have  yet  to 
learn  that  the  wealth  of  nations  itself  depends  on  a  similar 
aggregate. 

It  might  be  possible  and  useful  (in  reason)  to  work  out  a 
theory  of  several  special  instincts.  The  destructive  instinct 
has  been  in  some  ages  more  entirely  universal,  more  domi- 
nant, and  more  independent  perhaps,  than  any  other.  There 
have  been  ages  when  a  man  might  possibly  have  thought 
that  the  business  of  Destruction  was  so  nearly  identical  with 
human  activity,  and  the  instinct  of  Destruction  so  far  para- 
mount, that  no  other  was  worth  considering.  We  can  imag- 
ine a  science  of  Destruction,  or  the  laws  by  which  men  did,  do, 
and  must  destroy  each  other,  based  on  the  assumption  that 
man  acts  exclusively  on  the  destructive  instinct.  This  sci- 
ence, its  laws  and  its  postulates,  would  have  been  more  real 
in  early  Rome  or  at  least  in  modem  Dahomey,  than  the  sci- 
ence of  Production  on  the  postulate  of  the  selfish  instinct  is 
now  in  Europe.  The  obvious  objection  to  such  speculations 
would  be  that  man  had  so  many  other  capacities  and  in- 
stincts besides  those  of  destruction,  and  that  again  destruc- 


288  NATIONAX   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

tion  itself  called  out  so  many  other  capacities  and  instincts 
beside  the  destructive,  and  that  all  these  so  crossed  and  modi- 
fied each  other,  and  made  up  one  human  life,  depending  on 
one  human  character,  that  the  speculation  was  utterly  chi- 
merical, not  to  say  demoralising.  Production  is  far  more 
reasonable  than  Destruction,  and  the  desire  of  getting  ma- 
terial comfort  is,  perhaps,  superior  to  that  of  destroying  one's 
fellows ;  but  the  scientific  error  of  singling  these  out  of  human 
life  and  motives  is  almost  as  great,  and  only  less  debasing. 

Mr.  Mill  protests  against  economists  being  made  liable  for 
the  belief  that  the  facts  of  production  are  not  in  human  con- 
trol.    No  man  certainly  could  think  of  suggesting  that  he 
was  liable  to  the  charge  —  he,  to  whom  England  largely  owes 
the  true  conception  of  social  laws.     To  Mr.  Mill  we  owe  the 
knowledge  that  the  facts  of  society  are  more  modifiable  than 
any  other,  and  are  so  precisely  in  the  degree  in  which  we 
know  their  laws.     Nor  in  any  line  of  his  writing  is  this  truth 
forgotten.     But  it  may  fairly  be  asked  if  economists  as  a 
body  adopt  this  view ;  if  any  one  of  them  conceives  it  as  con- 
stantly and  fully  as  he  does.     Unquestionably  this  is  not  the 
notion  of  the  public.     In  newspapers,  pamphlets.  Parlia- 
ment, and  conversation,  it  is  repeated  continually  in  a  con- 
fused and  uncertain  form,  that  the  facts  of  production  and 
accumulation  are  beyond  human  control.     It  is  not  meant 
by  this  to  point  to  the  limiting  conditions  of  all  production, 
but  the  special  modes  of  distribution.     Let  these  ignorant 
workmen  be  told,  we  often  hear,  that  wages  and  profits  de- 
pend on  immutable  laws,  and  cannot  be  varied  at  the  will 
of  employer  or  employed.     Wages,  profits,  population,  con- 
sumption, and  accumulation,  every  branch  of  economy  in 
turn,  is  treated  by  the. public  as  if  fixed  by  nature  m  perma- 
nent proportions. 

Within  their  own  vast  limits  they  are  variable  to  any  ex- 


LIMITS   OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  289 

tent.  Change  the  ideas,  the  moral  tone,  the  habits,  and  all 
is  changed.  Yet  this  degrading  fatalism  (as  false  and  as 
deadening  as  Calvinism  itself)  is  seized  by  a  materialist  gen- 
eration as  an  excuse  for  giving  free  scope  to  its  greed,  just  has 
it  is  seized  by  Orientals  as  an  excuse  for  indulging  their  sloth. 
It  may  be  that  Economists  as  a  body  have  never  propagated 
this  monstrus  paradox;  but  some  of  them  distinctly  have 
fallen  into  it,  and  as  a  body  they  have  stood  by  and  have  never 
raised  their  voices  against  this  general  perversion  of  their 
teaching.  If  they  have  not  taught  it,  they  have  countenanced 
it  by  silence.  Their  teaching  gave  birth  to  this  delusion ;  it 
was  theirs  to  dispel  it.  None  of  them  have  done  so  but 
Mr.  Mill  and  some  of  his  followers,  and  that  because  they  are 
not  mere  Economists. 

It  may  fairly  be  asked  if  the  fact  of  an  elaborate  system  of 
economic  laws,  based  on  partial  data,  is  not  itself  a  proof 
that  whatever  they  professed,  the  economist  believed  very 
little  in  the  voluntary  modifiability  of  society.  Wliat  is  the 
use  of  a  vast  body  of  generalisations  based  on  a  special  set 
of  conditions,  where  the  conditions  may  vary  indefinitely? 
The  number  of  such  possible  bodies  of  laws  is  infinite. 
There  may  be  a  million  systems  of  Political  Economy  besides 
the  one  we  have  got,  all  just  as  true  if  we  allow  their  data. 
What  is  the  use  of  one  more  than  another,  unless  we  suppose 
some  one  of  the  sets  of  conditions  permanent?  The  actual 
economic  laws  are  certainly  not  true  now,  never  can  be  true, 
and  in  the  progress  of  civilisation  may  become  less  and  less 
true  indefinitely.  Let  it  be  supposed,  however,  that  they 
bear  some  relation  to  an  actual  state  of  society.  But  what 
if  the  actual  state  of  society  changes,  what  is  the  good  of  them 
then  ?  We  should  want  another  set  in  relation  to  that  change, 
and  so  on.  Every  social  system  might  have  its  own  economic 
laws. 


290  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

The  Socialists,  the  Communists,  the  Mormons,  nay,  the 
cannibals,  not  to  speak  of  every  social  system  in  history  and 
throughout  the  world,  might  have  its  own  economic  laws. 
The  Economists  have  absolutely  no  scientific  answer  to 
Communism.  They  take  one  special  instinct ;  Communism 
takes  another.  Every  social  state  that  ever  existed,  or  that 
could  exist  (and  they  are  infinite),  might  have  its  own  eco- 
nomic laws  appropriate  to  its  conditions.  In  a  religious 
fraternity  the  postulate  would  be  the  love  of  God,  and  the 
only  Competition  would  be  to  get  the  least  wages  and  the 
least  profits.  What,  then,  is  the  use  of  an  elaborate  body 
of  deductions,  until  we  have  agreed  on  the  conditions  from 
which  they  follow?  These  deductions,  that  is  to  say,  the 
economic  principles,  do  not  directly  affect  the  conditions  — 
that  is  to  say,  the  social  state;  but  it  directly  affects  them. 
When  we  have  got  the  social  state  we  want,  or  at  least  con- 
ceive it  as  a  whole,  then  we  can  build  up  useful  deductions 
from  it.  To  build  the  deductions  on  any  conditions  is  to 
assume  them  more  or  less  permanent.  Yet  all  reasonable 
social  enquiry  now  proceeds  on  the  ground  that  the  social  state 
requires  much  improvement.  That  which  can  improve  it 
must  be  something  which  affects  the  social  state,  and  this 
Economic  deductions  do  not,  or  do  most  superficially.  Po- 
litical Economy,  therefore,  as  an  elaborate  body  of  practical 
principles,  rests  on  the  assumption  that  the  social  state  is  prac- 
tically not  capable  of  improvement.  Directly  it  is  improved, 
new  Economic  principles  will  be  needed. 

A  school  of  thinkers,  with  an  entire  literature,  and  vast 
social  and  political  influence  like  that  of  the  Political  Econo- 
mists, must  be  held  responsible  for  the  social  and  popular 
results  of  their  teaching.  A  body  of  political  writers  who 
undertook  to  systematise  the  laws  of  government  on  the  as- 
sumption that  men  crave  only  for  place  and  power,  and  who 


LIMITS   OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  291 

rigidly  excluded  from  their  view  questions  of  religion,  edu- 
cation, morality,  society,  and  industry  —  who  confined  their 
views  to  the  Georgian  period  of  the  British  constitution,  and 
neglected  all  history,  and  all  the  rest  of  mankind  —  might 
construct  a  science  of  the  British  constitution,  and  a  num- 
ber of  hypothetical  laws  of  politics,  including  the  laws  of 
rotten  boroughs,  of  bribery,  patronage,  and  place-hunting; 
they  might  give  us  calculations  of  the  bribes  that  must  be 
given  and  the  jobs  which  must  be  perpetrated  (hypotheti- 
cally),  and  how  a  seat  in  Parliament  depended  on  the  num- 
ber of  voters  to  be  purchased  compared  with  the  length  of  the 
candidate's  purse.  But  such  men  could  hardly  complain  if 
they  were  accused  of  lowering  rather  than  elevating  political 
morality,  of  systematising  corruption,  and  reducing  venality 
to  a  science.  It  is  in  social  and  moral  affairs  that  this  par- 
tial method  of  enquiry  is  so  frightfully  dangerous.  Moral 
systems  on  narrow  bases  have  constantly  depraved  an  entire 
generation. 

We  know  the  disastrous  effects  which  moral  theories  of 
the  supremacy  of  the  selfish  instincts  have  at  times  exercised 
on  society.  Yet  Political  Economy  has,  as  its  postulate,  not 
the  predominance  merely,  but  the  exclusive  supremacy,  of 
one  of  the  selfish  instincts.  There  was  once  a  very  remark- 
able instance.  One  of  the  acutest  of  men,  Machiavelli, 
studying  one  of  the  corruptest  of  human  societies,  once  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  reducing  politics  to  a  system,  on  the  as- 
sumption that  men  simply  acted  for  their  own  interests  (the 
very  assumption  of  the  economists).  He  drew  up  a  wonder- 
ful body  of  generalisations  closely  related  to  the  special  society 
and  logically  true  to  his  special  assumption.  His  "Prince" 
is  a  sort  of  Bible  of  Political  Vice.  It  was  not  really  true  to 
his  facts,  nor  was  his  assumption  literally  true,  or  Italy  would 
have  realised  its  poet's  "Inferno."     But  it  was  sufficiently 


292 


NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 


true  to  exercise  a  frightful  effect  on  his  contemporaries. 
Nor  has  it  availed  him  and  his  apologists  to  insist  that  his 
theories  entirely  rested  on  an  hypothesis  which  he  did  nothing 
to  recommend;  that  the  assumption  was  fairly  near  the 
truth  where  he  wrote;  that  he  was  only  a  political  thinker 
analysing  the  phenomena  of  society.  It  has  not  availed  to 
save  a  man  of  many  noble  principles,  a  martyr  to  his  faith, 
from  being  a  by-word  for  cynical  wickedness.  The  social 
body,  even  less  than  the  physical,  cannot  bear  those  crucial 
experiments  of  scientific  enquirers. 

IV 

We  may  now  sum  up  the  various  conditions  which  limit 
the  study  of  the  facts  of  Production.  The  first  and  the 
radical  condition  is  that  it  be  simply  a  branch  of  a  general 
system  of  society.  As  worked  out  by  a  master  of  the  social 
laws  —  by  men  like  Hume,  Adam  Smith,  and  Mr.  Mill  — 
the  study  is  of  great  value.  But  even  then  it  will  be  marred 
by  the  failings  and  the  errors  of  the  social  theories  of  which 
it  is  a  part.  It  cannot  be  more  real  or  more  useful  than 
they  are.  Secondly,  that  portion  of  its  doctrines  which  de- 
pends not  on  human  motives  but  material  conditions  (the 
laws  which  govern  the  production  of  a  soap  bubble  as  much 
as  a  steamship)  may  be  taken  to  be  true  really  and  always,  so 
far  as  the  material  data  are  scientifically  right.  All  that 
portion  into  which  human  motives  enter  is  real  only  so  far 
as  the  whole  range  of  motives  is  studied ;  and  inasmuch  as 
the  whole  body  of  other  human  acts  is  omitted,  is  real  only 
relatively  to  them.  In  this  portion,  the  bulk  of  ordinary 
economy,  there  is  but  one  rational  predicate  —  "w."  But 
such  words  as  ''ought;'  "must;'  ''will  he;'  never  can  appear 
in  its  formulae.  Thirdly,  its  doctrines  are  purely  provisional 
and  ephemeral.    Its  data  being  the  forms  of  our  immediate 


LIMITS   OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  293 

civilisation,  it  has  no  bearing  beyond  it.  It  has  no  historical 
truth,  and  therefore  no  future  value.  It  had  no  meaning  in 
the  thirteenth  century ;  and  may  have  none  in  the  twentieth. 
Fourthly,  the  application  of  these  formulae  to  life,  from  the 
fact  that  it  neglects  time  —  and  in  most  relations  of  life  time 
is  all-important  —  and  from  the  extreme  complication  of  the 
subject,  is  of  all  intellectual  tasks  the  most  difficult  and  hazard- 
ous. To  navigate  an  ocean  with  a  knowledge  of  one  wind 
or  one  current  alone  is  nothing  to  it.  It  may  lure  a  nation  to 
ruin,  and  demoralise  it  in  the  process. 

It  being  understood  that  these  generalisations  never  have 
absolute  truth,  and  rarely  practical  value,  we  may  add  some 
tests  that  these  limits  are  observed.  The  more  systematic 
and  complete  are  the  social  principles  on  which  they  rest, 
the  more  valuable  and  sound  will  be  the  economic  deduc- 
tions. They  grow  less  and  less  so,  the  less  this  subordina- 
tion is  recognised.  The  more  the  economic  generalisations 
are  correct  historically,  the  more  likely  it  is  that  they  conform 
to  human  nature.  What  is  true  of  all  societies  and  times,  is 
probably  true  altogether.  The  more  the  special  economic 
facts  are  independent  of  general  institutions  and  habits,  the 
more  easy  they  are  to  be  isolated  and  calculated.  The  more 
they  depend  on  special  motives,  the  more  accurate  will  be 
the  analysis.  The  more  temporary  the  human  relation  or 
effort  they  involve,  the  easier  they  are  to  explain.  The  more 
they  depend  on  special  and  highly  artificial  processes,  the 
more  independent  and  accurate  the  laws.  Prices  in  mar- 
ket overt,  currency,  bills  of  exchange,  monetary  practices, 
insurance,  restrictions  on  trade,  taxation,  form  subjects  more 
or  less  capable  of  accurate  generalisation  and  very  valuable 
principles.  Man  as  a  responsible  moral  being,  human  life 
as  a  whole,  is  less  directly  affected.  But  wages,  profits, 
accumulation,    consumption,    population,    poor-laws,    land- 


294  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

systems,  partnership,  tenancy,  trade-unions,  co-operation,  — 
these  are  things  which  involve  the  great  human  instincts, 
wants,  and  institutions ;  and  they  are  for  the  most  part  beyond 
the  reach  of  a  mere  economist.  He  can  deal  with  the  shell, 
not  with  the  kernel  of  life,  for  of  permanent  human  relations 
and  forces  he  knows  nothing.  But  what  does  this  list  of 
tests  show  but  this  ?  —  that  with  the  trivial  forms  of  existence 
Economy  can  do  something ;  with  the  greater,  nothing  — 
that  it  can  only  deal  with  these  as  it  widens  into  Social 
Philosophy. 

No  doubt  the  bulk  of  the  ordinary  economists  have  a  sort 
of  social  philosophy,  a  general  theory  of  society.  But  it 
is  one  which  they  very  loosely  conceive ;  and  would  be  quite 
unable  to  prove.  It  is  certainly  one  which  the  public  who 
follow  them,  in  its  naked  form  most  sternly  reject.  Most 
of  them  are  more  or  less  conscious  adherents  of  that  perverse 
phase  of  Benthamism  which  places  the  roots  of  morality 
in  the  selfish  instincts,  and  the  basis  of  society  on  absolute 
non-interference.  With  the  moral  doctrine  of  self-interest 
and  the  political  doctrine  of  laissez-faire  (vaguely  understood) 
the  pure  statistician  thinks  himself  prepared  for  investigating 
production. 

But  the  authors  of  these  principles  were  not  specialists. 
Their  theories  of  self-interest  and  individualism  were  based 
on  systematic  education,  on  thorough  moral  training,  on 
entire  social  reconstruction.  To  leave  all  these  to  take  care 
of  themselves  is  to  seize  on  the  mischievous  side  of  their 
doctrines  alone.  To  Bentham  self-interest  meant  a  very 
cultivated  sense  of  duty;  to  the  economist  it  means  a  gross 
personal  appetite.  He  said.  Let  government  cease  to  force, 
so  that  men  may  be  educated  to  justice.  The  economist 
protests  against  interference,  so  that  the  instinct  of  gain  be 
unchecked.     If  his  general  principles  are  right,  they  remain 


LIMITS   OF   POLITICAL  ECONOMY  295 

to  be  proved.  That  they  be  true,  that  they  be  complete, 
that  they  be  systematic,  is  all  essential.  They  are  what 
physiology  is  to  the  physician,  what  a  creed  is  to  the  priest. 
If  these  moral  and  social  problems  yet  await  a  decision,  they 
must  be  judged  in  themselves,  not  insinuated  in  a  body  of 
practical  rules  of  life.  In  the  meantime  it  is  intolerable 
that  in  the  innocent  form  of  a  scheme  for  increasing  our 
comfort,  society  should  be  saturated  with  principles  which 
philosophy  condemns  as  radically  false,  and  the  moral  sense 
rejects  as  profoundly  degrading. 

Is  it  that  no  social  philosophy  is  needed?  Is  it  that  we 
need  only  to  know  how  to  produce  more  —  not  how  to  produce 
in  a  more  human  way  ?  Does  industry  need  no  correcting, 
purifying,  guiding?  Are  there  not  things  in  it  which  make 
feeble  souls  look  on  material  progress  as  a  curse?  Are 
there  not  quarters  in  our  big  cities  where  two  children  die 
in  place  of  one  —  twenty  thousand,  where  ten  thousand 
might  have  been  saved;  where  sucking  infants  are  drugged 
with  opium,  and  farmed  at  nurse  by  a  hag  by  the  score; 
where  amidst  arsenic  and  brimstone  fumes  the  jaws  fall 
out,  the  bones  rot  off,  lungs  choke,  and  youths  and  girls 
die  faster  than  in  Mississippian  swamp?  Are  there  no 
"works"  reeking  with  cruel  blots,  where  toil  is  endless, 
foul,  and  crushing,  —  where  the  rich  man's  luxuries  are 
elaborated  by  disease  and  death,  —  where  unsexed  men 
and  women  live  the  lives  of  swine,  —  where  children  are 
worn,  maimed,  poisoned  as  in  a  limbus  infantium,  — 
stunted  in  soul  and  limb,  polluted  and  polluting?  Are 
there  not  trades  where  the  safeguards  against  death  are 
forbidden,  that  lives  may  fall  and  wages  rise?  Are  not 
each  year  one  thousand  lives  lost  in  coal  mines,  "chiefly 
from  preventible  causes"?  Are  there  not  our  million  or 
so  of  paupers  whom  neglect  leaves  sometimes  to  fester  to 


296  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

death,  —  sometimes  to  die  in  parturition  ?  Are  there  not 
gangs  of  women  and  children  driven  from  farm  to  farm  by 
an  actual  slave-driver?  Is  there  not  our  rural  labourer, 
the  portent  of  England,  without  hope  or  energy;  plodding 
wearily  through  life  like  his  ox? 

And  where  such  abominations  are  not,  is  there  not  amidst 
the  healthier  forms  of  labour  a  deep  class  feud,  and  spirit 
of  strife,  sweeping  across  our  modern  industry,  as  the  plagues 
and  famines  of  the  later  Middle  Ages  swept  over  Europe,  — 
gigantic  outrages  and  strikes,  shaking  the  fabric  of  society, 
and  threatening  its  very  institutions ;  on  the  one  side  a  wild 
sense  of  wrong,  on  the  other  a  raging  desire  to  be  rich? 
These  are  the  evils  we  see,  and  for  which  we  need  a  remedy ; 
evils  of  moral,  social  kinds,  coming  out  of  rotten  systems 
of  life  and  ungovernable  passions.  And  they  tell  us  that 
the  cure  is  to  be  found  in  a  knowledge  of  Political  Economy 
—  in  the  study  of  hypothetical  laws,  which  would  be  true  if 
all  men  followed  their  selfish  instincts. 

We  need  indeed  a  social  philosophy.  If  one  instinct  can 
be  reduced  to  a  method,  others  can.  If  one  form  of  activity 
can  be  systematised,  all  the  forms  and  life  itself  can.  Where 
are  the  laws  of  Production  on  the  hypothesis  of  Duty? 
Where  are  the  principles  of  morality  and  sociality :  of  good- 
feeling,  of  equity,  of  protection,  of  good  faith,  of  self-denial, 
as  applied  to  Industry?  Where  is  the  science  of  popular 
education?  If  there  be  a  science  of  the  Acquisitive  instinct, 
we  need  one  much  more  of  the  Protecting  instinct.  If  these 
have  not  been  done,  it  is  because  so  great  a  part  of  modern 
intellect  and  study  has  been  absorbed  in  analysing  one 
phase  of  life  and  one  instinct  of  the  soul  —  a  phase  the  most 
obvious  to  specialise,  an  instinct  the  most  dangerous  to 
isolate. 


II 

TRADES-UNIONISM 

(1865) 

The  following  is  part  of  an  article  published  in  the  second 
volume  of  the  Fortnightly  Review  under  the  editorship 
of  Mr.  George  H.  Lewes. 

After  the  great  lock-out  in  the  Building  Trades  of 
1862,  the  writer  had  been  in  close  relations  with  the 
secretaries  and  committees  of  the  chief  Unions.  He  had 
also  often  visited  the  Unions  at  Leeds,  Manchester,  Brad- 
ford, Halifax,  Rochdale,  Sheffield,  and  Nottingham. 
During  the  Cotton  Famine,  together  with  the  late  Sir 
Godfrey  Lushington,  he  conducted  a  personal  enquiry 
into  the  condition  of  the  Lancashire  operatives^  societies 
of  all  kinds.  He  had  also  written  much  in  the  Bee 
Hive,  and  other  workmen's  organs,  and  afterwards  in 
the  Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

Although  this  sketch  of  trades-unionism  is  now  more 
than  forty  years  old,  as  it  was  founded  on  personal 
knowledge  of  the  societies  and  on  intimacy  with  many 
of  their  managers,  there  is  no  reason  to  change,  or  even 
to  qualify,  the  principles  here  insisted  upon  —  prin- 
ciples which  the  whole  evidence  laid  before  the  Trades- 
union  Commission  of  iSdy-g  amply  justified  —  and 
which  have  since  been  adopted  by  the  legislature  (igo8). 

297 


298  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

Of  the  features  of  our  industrial  system,  none  is  more  im- 
portant to  study  than  that  most  significant  fact  —  the  insti- 
tution, growth,  and  power  of  trades-unionism.  It  is  in 
reahty  the  practical  solution  of  all  labour  questions,  to  which 
the  labouring  classes  cling.  Right  or  wrong,  it  is  their 
panacea.  It  is  in  many  ways  by  far  the  most  powerful 
element  of  our  industrial  system  that  has  been  yet  organised 
into  an  institution.  It  thus  goes  to  the  very  root  of  the  most 
vital  movements  of  society.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
the  whole  political,  practical,  and  organising  energies  of  the 
working  class  are  now  thrown  into  it.  If  reform  bills  lan- 
guish, and  agitation  lingers  to  awake,  it  is  because  they  are 
absorbed  in  industrial  rather  than  political  leagues.  No 
one  can  suppose  that  the  existing  dead  calm  and  indecision  in 
the  political  sphere  really  represents  the  practical  instinct 
and  energy  of  Englishmen.  It  is  not  so.  Our  real  public 
movements  and  struggles  are  industrial.  In  them  powers 
of  will  and  sympathy  are  being  exerted  as  keen  as  ever  thrilled 
in  our  hottest  political  convulsions.  Of  this  movement  the 
heart  and  centre  —  the  club-life  —  the  associative,  initiative, 
and  reserve  force,  is  unionism  —  a  force,  on  the  whole,  of 
which  the  public  should  know  the  whole  truth  —  and  nothing 
but  the  truth. 

I.  The  first  thing  is  to  recognise  the  extent  and  impor- 
tance of  the  movement  itself.  For  all  general  purposes  the 
unions  can  count  upon  the  support  and  contributions  of 
at  least  an  equal  number  of  the  workmen  who  are  not  regular 
members  of  the  society.  Their  "  war-footing,"  it  may  be  said, 
is  about  double  that  of  their  peace  establishment.  For  all 
practical  purposes,  therefore,  the  unions  may  be  taken  to 
represent  the  available  strength  of  the  whole  skilled  body 
of  artisans.     Nor  are  these  recent  or  precarious  associations, 


TRADES-UNIONISM  299 

Most  of  them  have  steadily  increased  in  numbers,  income, 
and  extent  for  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years.  Trades  in  which 
the  most  obstinate  struggles  have  taken  place  —  the  engi- 
neers, the  coUiers,  the  cotton-spinners,  the  building  trades 
—  still  shov^  the  unions  far  larger  and  more  flourishing  than 
before.  Any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  collect  and 
examine  the  latest  trade  circulars  of  the  principal  societies 
will  see  the  record  of  their  progress.  Increased  numbers, 
wider  area,  and  larger  funds  are  shown  from  year  to  year. 
Everywhere  organisation,  consolidation,  and  regularity  ex- 
tend. Englishmen,  who  never  mistake  the  signs  of  commer- 
cial success,  can  hardly  fail  to  see  that  there  must  be  some- 
thing at  bottom  to  make  these  live;  and  men  who  know 
how  to  estimate  political  forces  will  recognise  the  strength 
of  an  institution  that  has  an  organisation  to  which  no  politi- 
cal association  in  the  kingdom  can  distantly  aspire. 

In  the  face  of  facts  like  these,  it  does  seem  strange  that 
sensible  men,  and  even  sensible  employers,  should  continue 
to  talk  of  unions  as  nests  of  misery,  folly,  and  ruin.  Men 
who  have  to  deal  with  these  powerful  associations  themselves 
can  bring  themselves  to  speak  of  them  as  "cancers  to  be 
cut  out,"  as  "diseases,"  and  "madness"  to  be  cured,  and 
even  suggest  an  Act  of  Parliament  to  suppress  all  associa- 
tions whatever.  It  is  like  the  Vatican  raving  at  newspapers 
and  railways.  Such  an  Act  of  Parliament  would  be  simply 
a  social  revolution.  It  would  be  as  easy  to  eradicate  the 
"cancer"  of  unionism  as  it  would  to  eradicate  the  "cancer" 
of  public  meetings,  or  the  "disease"  of  a  free  press.  The 
fact  that  the  flower  of  our  artisan  population  are  staunch 
unionists,  does  not  prove  that  unions  are  beneficial.  But 
it  would  be  more  reasonable  if  the  public,  and  certainly  if 
employers,  would  think  it  proved  them  to  be  not  quite  pes- 
tilent and  suicidal.    They  are,  from  the  mere  fact  of  their 


300  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

importance,  entitled  to  respect.  No  rational  man  can  think 
that  the  working-men  of  this  country  are  Hkely  to  be  found 
year  after  year  more  and  more  devoted  to  any  system,  if 
it  were  no  less  ruinous  to  themselves  than  vicious  in  prin- 
ciple. Unionism,  right  or  wrong,  is  the  grand  movement  in 
which  the  working  classes  have  their  heart.  Men  of  sense 
will  recognise  this  fact,  and  deal  with  it  accordingly.  It  is 
the  prevalence  of  misjudgments  like  these  which  make  these 
trade  struggles  so  obstinate;  and  perhaps  it  is  that  which 
makes  them  so  common. 

There  is  a  still  worse  form  of  misconception  prevalent, 
which  amounts  sometimes  to  personal  calumny.  It  is  still 
the  fashion  to  repeat  that  unions  and  strikes  are  uniformly 
the  work  of  interested  agitators.  These  men,  in  the  stereo- 
typed phrase,  are  supposed  to  drive  their  misguided  victims 
like  sheep.  We  hear  from  time  to  time  employers  giving 
us  this  account  of  the  matter  in  apparent  good  faith;  just 
as  the  Austrians  always  thought  the  Italian  movement  was 
the  work  of  Mazzini.  Now  if  there  is  one  feature  of  union- 
ism which  is  more  singular  than  another  it  is  the  scrupulous 
care  with  which  it  maintains  the  principles  of  democratic 
and  representative  government.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
find  a  single  trade  society  in  England  in  which  any  official 
or  any  board  of  managers  could  take  any  important  step, 
or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  deal  with  the  common  funds 
without  a  regular  written  vote  from  their  constituents.  Those 
who  talk  of  the  action  of  a  trade-union  as  if  it  were  a  body 
of  Carbonari,  must  be  entirely  ignorant  of  the  elaborate 
machinery  by  which  a  union  is  worked.  Before  any  im- 
portant step,  much  less  before  a  general  strike  is  determined 
on,  regular  voting  papers  are  sent  round  to  every  member 
of  the  society;  the  step  is  discussed  night  after  night  in 
every  separate  lodge;    if  the  subject  requires  it,  delegates 


TRADES-UNIONISM  3OI 

are  chosen  from  each  lodge;  conferences  are  constantly 
held,  often  followed  by  fresh  appeals  to  the  constituencies; 
the  discussions  often  last  six  months,  and  are  practically 
public;  the  result  is  at  length  ascertained  by  a  simple  com- 
parison of  votes,  and  is  often  one  which  the  secretaries  and 
managers  have  no  means  whatever  of  influencing  or  even 
foreseeing. 

In  fact  the  vote  on  an  important  question  of  one  of  the 
large  amalgamated  societies  scattered  over  the  country, 
the  separate  lodges  of  which  discuss  the  subject  under  very 
different  conditions,  and  the  body  of  which  the  secretaries 
have  no  means  whatever  of  addressing  or  meeting,  is  the 
purest  type  of  democratic  representation  of  opinion.  The 
subject  is  one  which  usually  touches  each  voter,  his  comfort, 
his  family,  and  his  future,  in  the  most  vital  manner ;  it  relates 
to  matters  with  which  he  is  perfectly  familiar ;  he  is  not 
accessible  to  personal  appeal,  nor,  except  in  a  very  small 
degree,  to  written  addresses  from  any  central  authority; 
it  is  one  which  he  has  to  discuss  with  a  small  number  of 
his  fellows,  and  on  which  he  has  to  vote  with  a  very  large 
number,  but  without  communication ;  the  ordinary  machinery 
of  canvassing,  excitement,  and  party  agitation  is  simply 
impossible ;  and  the  result  is  one  which  it  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion to  predict.  It  is  a  species  of  pure  democratic  united 
with  true  representative  government.  The  members  indi- 
vidually vote  as  in  an  ancient  republic,  but  generally  with 
the  assistance  and  counsel  of  special  representative  assem- 
blies, and  invariably  in  separate  and  independent  groups. 
If  any  system  ever  yet  devised  makes  a  dictator  or  a  dema- 
gogue impossible,  it  is  this.  Its  great  defect  is  its  cumbrous- 
ness  and  want  of  concentration.  But  of  all  others  it  is  the 
way  to  bring  out  the  deliberate  opinion  of  every  individual 
member.     It   is   this  —  not   infatuation  —  which   makes   a 


302  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

deliberate  strike  so"  obstinate.  There  is  no  political  institu- 
tion in  this  country  which  carries  self-government  to  any- 
thing like  the  same  pitch.  And,  what  should  not  be  for- 
gotten, it  is  a  system  which  has  already  given  the  whole  class 
a  very  high  degree  of  political  education. 

As  to  the  managers  of  these  associations  they  are  invariably 
elected  periodically  by  the  same  general  suffrage.  They  are 
almost  invariably  simple  members  of  the  body  themselves, 
and  their  salaries  scarcely  exceed  their  ordinary  wages. 
So  far  as  the  personal  knowledge  of  the  writer  goes  (and  it 
is  not  inconsiderable),  they  are  usually  honest,  sensible  men 
of  business,  sometimes  strikingly  deficient  in  the  art  of  expres- 
sion, and  the  powers  of  party  agitators.  The  men  who 
direct  a  strike  have  usually  been  at  their  work  until  its  com- 
mencement, and  would  usually  return  to  it  at  its  close,  were 
it  not  that  they  are  too  often  chased  out  of  their  trade  by 
all  the  employers  in  concert. 

The  present  writer,  who  has  for  years  known  intimately 
the  managers  of  very  many  societies,  cannot  refrain  from 
bearing  his  witness  that  amongst  them  are  to  be  found  men 
as  upright,  enlightened,  and  honourable  as  any  in  the  com- 
munity; that  the  influence  they  possess  is  almost  always 
the  result  of  tried  ability  and  character;  and  the  instances 
of  such  men  living  out  of  their  followers'  necessities  are 
extremely  rare.  For  the  most  part  they  go  through  hard 
clerks'  routine  of  accounts  and  reports,  under  a  good  deal 
of  persecution  from  the  employers,  and  are  not  seldom  the 
most  conservative  and  peaceful  counsellors  in  the  whole 
society.  The  union  is  frequently  able  to  suppress  the  ten- 
dency to  indiscriminate  strikes.  It  is,  indeed,  notorious 
that  the  faults  into  which  the  leaders  of  the  established  unions 
are  apt  to  fall  are  routine  and  excess  of  caution.  I  have 
myself  seen  a  circular  issued  by  the  council  of  an  amalga- 


TRADES-UNIONISM  303 

mated  society  to  warn  the  members  against  the  disposition 
to  strike  for  which  a  sudden  improvement  of  trade  had  given 
great  faciHties.  The  larger  and  more  estabUshed  the  unions 
become,  the  fewer  causes  of  struggle  arise.  And  there 
would  be  no  greater  security  for  the  employer  and  the  public 
than  that  the  societies  should  be  stronger,  and  their  leaders 
more  trusted. 

II.  Next  to  the  character  of  these  societies  and  their 
leaders  being  fairly  judged,  it  is  very  desirable  that  the  truth 
be  ascertained  as  to  the  success  or  non-success  of  strikes. 
It  used  to  be  frequently  said,  and  it  has  been  repeated  occa- 
sionally by  employers,  that  strikes  never  succeed.  It  is 
only  the  other  day  that  the  newspapers  informed  us  of  a 
very  important  strike  which  did  result  in  a  great  increase 
of  wages.  The  carpenters  of  London,  a  body  numbering 
from  10,000  to  15,000,  the  majority  of  whom  are  in  union, 
demanded,  and  after  a  strike  of  some  weeks,  defeating  a 
threatened  lock-out,  succeeded  in  obtaining,  an  advance 
of  wages  of  about  lo  per  cent.  This  advance  is  now  being 
given  to  the  other  building  trades,  and  will  soon  be  general. 
No  one  doubts  that  this  rise  is  permanent,  and  will  never 
be  reduced.  There  is  here  an  undoubted  instance  of  a 
body  numbering  nearly  40,000  men  obtaining  a  large  an(i 
permanent  rise  of  wages  by  means  of  a  strike.  How  this 
is  economically  possible  had  better  be  answered  by  those 
economists  who  first  invent  industrial  laws,  and  then  invent 
facts  to  fit  them. 

The  statement,  indeed,  is  so  contrary  to  the  experience 
of  every  one  who  has  been  able  to  look  at  the  question  from 
an  independent  point,  and  over  a  wide  area,  that  there  is 
overwhelming  proof  that  it  is  entirely  erroneous.  Any  one 
who  will  search  the  files  of  a  working-class  organ  will  find 


304  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

accurate  reports  of  countless  successful  strikes  over  every 
part  of  England.  The  present  writer  has  in  his  possession 
a  list  of  the  successful  strikes  for  one  single  trade  in  one 
year.  This  list  contains  more  than  eighty  instances  in 
which  one  union  in  that  period  had  by  actual  or  threatened 
strikes  obtained  increased  wages,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing, 
shorter  hours. 

The  sums  which  are  absurdly  calculated  as  "lost"  in  a 
strike  are  usually  not  lost  at  all,  but  only  retained.  No 
doubt,  in  every  prolonged  strike  a  good  deal  is  lost,  but  it 
is  chiefly  in  interest  upon  fixed  capital.  To  calculate  all 
the  sums  which  might  have  been  spent  in  wages  as  "lost" 
or  "wasted"  is  simply  puerile.  The  wages  fund,  in  the 
language  of  economists,  is  the  sum  which  the  capitalist 
devotes  to  the  payment  of  wages;  and  since  in  a  general 
strike  or  lock-out  the  owners  of  vast  and  costly  factories 
cannot  employ  the  fund  (except  temporarily)  in  any  other 
way,  and  their  customers  have  to  wait  for  their  goods,  sooner 
or  later  the  wages  fund,  or  most  of  it,  is  paid  to  the  workmen 
in  the  trade.  Whether  it  comes  to  them  regularly  or  spas- 
modically signifies  a  great  deal  to  the  well-being  of  the  recipi- 
ents; but  in  the  long  run  they  get  the  gross  sum,  though 
somewhat  discounted.  General  and  even  partial  strikes 
are  usually  preceded  and  succeeded  by  extra  production 
and  labour,  which  nearly  equalise  the  rate  for  the  whole 
period.  Very  many  lock-outs  are  simply  a  mode  of  stopping 
production  during  a  stagnant  state  of  trade,  and  are  occa- 
sionally only  a  device  of  some  of  the  more  powerful  employers 
to  force  their  own  body  to  cease  production,  whilst  they  are 
waiting  or  manoeu\Ting  for  a  rise  of  price.  During  a  strike 
both  masters  and  men  reduce  all  expenditure  to  a  minimum, 
which  by  itself  is  an  obvious  saving.  And  there  are  many 
strikes  and  lock-outs  in  which  the  actual  loss  from  various 


TRADES-UNIONISM  305 

causes  is  a  trifle,  or  where  it  would  be  inevitable  from  other 
causes.  But  in  any  case,  to  calculate  the  deferred  expendi- 
ture of  wages  as  "loss"  is  a  sophistical  use  of  terms.  The 
employer  in  a  strike  suffers  the  loss  of  interest  on  fixed  capital 
and  of  his  profit  (a  loss  which  is  often  from  other  reasons 
inevitable);  the  workman  suffers  a  loss  of  comfort  which 
is  often  compensated  by  the  discipline  it  enforces.  The 
real  loss  is  the  loss  of  common  interest  and  good  feeling; 
but  the  supposed  loss  of  wages  rests  generally  on  a  mere 
juggle  of  words. 

A  careful  investigation  of  the  subject  in  such  records  as 
are  constantly  published,  totally  dispels  the  prevalent  idea 
that  unions  and  strikes  have  no  object  but  that  of  raising 
wages,  and  in  that  object  they  invariably  meet  a  "miserable 
monotony  of  defeat." 

Strikes,  of  course,  frequently  fail.  But  a  careful  com- 
parison will  show  the  following  results :  — 

1.  Strikes  to  obtain  a  rise  of  wages  or  a  reduction  of 
hours  usually  succeed. 

2.  Strikes  to  resist  a  reduction  of  wages  usually  fail. 

3.  Strikes  to  enforce  trade  rules  or  to  suppress  objection- 
able practices  usually  fail  in  appearance  and  succeed  in 
reality. 

4.  Lock-outs  to  crush  unions  invariably  fail. 

III.  After  that  of  general  protection  against  abuses  and 
against  overtime,  one  of  the  chief  and  the  most  useful  func- 
tions of  unionism  is  to  resist  the  tendency  to  continual  fluc- 
tuations in  wages.  At  first  sight  nothing  seems  more  natural 
than  that  wages  should  vary  with  the  price  of  the  product. 
The  principal  objection,  however,  against  the  sliding  scale 
of  wages  and  prices  is  that  it  associates  the  workmen  directly 
with  the  gambling  vicissitudes  of  the  market.     To  do  this 


306  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

is  to  destroy  one  of  the  benefits  of  civilisation  and  the  social 
justification  of  large  capitals.  It  is  of  vital  interest  to  society 
that  the  actual  labourer  should  have  a  regular  and  not  a 
fluctuating  means  of  subsistence.  As  he  can  save  but  little, 
he  has  no  reserve  to  stand  sudden  changes;  and  sudden 
loss  or  stoppage  of  his  wages  means  moral  and  physical 
degradation  to  him.  He  has  not  the  education  or  the  means 
of  foreseeing,  much  less  of  providing  against,  the  wider 
influences  of  the  market.  The  great  gains  and  the  great 
losses  naturally  should  fall  to  the  share  of  the  capitalist 
alone. 

He  and  his  order  can  act  on  the  state  of  the  market,  and 
are  bound  to  watch  and  know  its  movements.     Society  is 
bound  to  protect  them  only  on  condition  that  they  perform 
this  function  satisfactorily.     But  to  let  every  little  vicissi- 
tude of  the  market  fall  directly  on  the  mere  labourer,  who 
knows  nothing  about  it,  and  cannot  affect  it  if  he  did,  is 
simply  barbarism.     In  such  a  state  of  things  the  capitalist 
abdicates  his  real  post  and  becomes  a  mere  job-master  or 
ganger.    He  associates  his  helpless  workmen  in  every  specu- 
lative adventure.    He  leaves  them  to  bear  the  effects  of  a 
glut  which  his  recklessness  may  have  caused,  or  of  a  foreign 
war  which  his  prudence  might  have  foreseen.     Every  fall 
in  the  price  of  wares,  fluctuating  as  this  is  from  a  compli- 
cation of  accidents,  mulcts  the  labourer  suddenly  of  ten, 
twelve,  or  fifteen  per  cent  of  his  living.    How  many  middle- 
class   families   could    stand   this   every   quarter?    To   the 
labourer,  who  has  no  reserve,  no  credit,  and  no  funded 
income,  and  who  by  the  necessity  of  the  case  lives  from 
week  to  week  and  from  hand  to  mouth,  it  means  the  sacri- 
fice of  his  comforts,  of  his  children's  education,  of  his  honest 
efforts.    There  was  truth,  though  it  may  be  not  very  fully 
expressed,  in  the  words  of  the  old  puddler  at  the  recent 


TRADES-UNIONISM  307 

conference :  "He  knew  no  reason  why  working-men's  wages 
were  to  be  pulled  to  pieces  to  suit  the  foreign  markets." 
Capital,  in  fact,  would  become  a  social  nuisance  if  it  could 
only  make  the  labourer  a  blind  co-speculator  in  its  adven- 
tures. 

It  is  far  from  the  writer's  meaning  to  deny  that  wages 
must  in  the  long  run  be  accommodated  to  profits.     From 
year  to  year,  or  over  longer  periods,  wages  will  gradually 
find  their  level.     But  it  is  a  totally  different  thing  that  they 
should  fluctuate   with  all  the  erratic  movements  incident 
to  every  market  price-list.    A  merchant  will  not   give  to 
his  accountants  more  than  the  average  salaries  of  his  busi- 
ness.    He  does  not,  however,  walk  into  his  counting-house, 
and  tell  his  clerks  that,  having  lost  a  ship  which  he  forgot 
to  insure,  he  reduces  their  salaries  ten  per  cent.     The  wages 
of  all  the  superior  trades  are,  or  might  be,  nearly  stationary 
for   long   periods   together.     The    engineers,    who    form   a 
branch  of  the  iron  trade,  subject  to  amazing  fluctuations, 
have  been  paid  at  the  same  rates  now  invariably  for  more 
than  ten  years.     So  till  the  rise  of  the  last  few  months  had 
the  London  builders.     Of  course  the  men,  to  do  this,  must 
have  foregone  every  temporary  or  partial  rise.     For  their 
true  good  these  sudden  advances  in  wages  do  them  more 
real   harm  even   than   sudden   reduction.     Acting   on  this 
principle  the  trades  just  mentioned,  and  most  of  the  leading 
trades,  have  maintained  an  unvarying  rate  of  wages,  as  well 
as  suppressed  those  spasmodic  seasons  of  excessive  produc- 
tion and  sudden  cessation  which  form  the  glory  of  the  race 
of  industrial  conquerors.     But  to  do  this  the  workmen  must 
have  a  union  capable  of  putting  them  on  an  equality  with 
capital. 

As  it  is  this  interference  with  what  is  called  Free  Trade 
which  is  the  main  charge  against  unionism,  it  is  important 


308  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

to  examine  this  question  in  detail.  It  is  often  asked  why 
cannot  the  fifty  shillings'  worth  of  puddling  be  bought  in 
the  same  manner  as  fifty  shillings'  worth  of  pig-iron  ?  Well, 
one  thing  is,  that  the  pig-iron  can  wait  till  next  week  or  next 
month.  It  is  in  no  immediate  hurry.  But  the  fifty  shil- 
lings' worth  of  puddling  cannot  wait,  even  a  few  days.  The 
"human  machine"  in  question  is  liable  to  the  fatal  defect 
of  dying.  Nor  is  it  in  all  the  relations  of  life  that  "each 
man  is  free  to  bargain  for  himself."  It  is  curious  in  how 
many  sides  of  our  existence  this  liberty  is  curtailed.  If  one 
wants  £1000  worth  of  horse,  one  can  go  to  Tattersall's  and 
buy  it  without  question.  But  if  one  wants  ;)^iooo  worth  of 
wife,  there  will  be  a  good  many  questions  asked,  and  a  good 
many  people  to  consuh.  The  lady's  relations  even  may 
wish  to  say  something ;  there  may  be  all  sorts  of  stipulations, 
to  say  nothing  of  settlements.  A  man  cannot  buy  a  place 
in  a  partnership  exactly  in  open  market.  He  cannot  go 
to  a  physician  or  a  lawyer  or  a  priest  and  haggle  about  the  fee. 
Wherever  there  are  close  or  permanent  human  relations, 
between  one  man  and  many,  an  understanding  with  all 
jointly  is  the  regular  course.  Every  partnership  of  labour, 
all  co-operation  to  effect  anything  in  common,  involves  this 
mutual  agreement  between  all.  It  is  because  employers 
fail  to  see  that  manufacture  is  only  the  combined  labour  of 
many  of  which  they  are  the  managers,  that  they  regard  the 
whole  concern,  stock,  plant,  and  "hands,"  as  raw  material, 
to  be  bought  and  sold.  The  iron-master  who  buys  pig- 
iron  is  not  entering  into  permanent  relations  with  it,  or 
even  with  its  possessor.  It  cannot  work  with  him,  obey 
him,  trust  him.  The  "human  machine,"  however,  is  a 
very  surprising  engine.  It  has  a  multitude  of  wants,  a 
variety  of  feelings,  and  is  capable  of  numerous  human  im- 
pulses   which    are    commonly    called    human    nature.    An 


TRADES-UNIONISM  309 

iron-master  cannot  buy  in  open  market  fifty  shillings'  worth 
of  puddling,  because  he  does  not  want  fifty  shillings'  worth 
of  puddling.  It  would  be  of  no  good  to  him  if  he  had  it. 
He  wants  a  man  who  will  work,  not  his  fifty  shillings'  worth 
of  puddling,  but  day  by  day  and  year  by  year;  who  will 
work  when  he  is  not  himself  overlooking  him;  who  will 
work  intelligently,  and  not  ruin  his  machinery  and  waste 
his  stuff;  who  will  not  cheat  him,  or  rob  him,  or  murder 
him ;  who  will  work  as  a  chance  hireling  will  not  and  cannot 
work;  who  will  trust  him  to  act  fairly,  and  feel  pride  in 
his  work,  and  in  the  place. 

If  he  cannot  get  men  like  these  he  knows  that  he  will  be 
ruined  and  undersold  by  those  who  can.  He  knows  that 
fifty  shillings'  worth  of  black  slave  would  not  help  him,  nor 
fifty  shilHngs'  worth  of  steam  engine.  Do  what  he  will, 
perfect  machinery  to  a  miracle,  still  the  manufacturer  must 
ultimately  depend  on  the  co-operation  of  human  brains 
and  hearts.  No  "human  machinery"  will  serve  his  end. 
Can  a  general  in  war  buy  fifty  shillings'  worth  of  devoted 
soldiers?  Can  he  make  his  bargain  with  each  man  of  his 
army  separately?  They  are  too  precious  to  be  picked  up 
in  a  moment,  and  their  efficiency  lies  in  their  union.  If 
the  iron-master  had  to  go  into  the  labour  market  as  often 
as  he  has  to  go  into  the  iron  market,  and  haggle  for  every 
day's  work  as  he  does  for  every  pig  and  bar,  he  would  be 
a  dead  or  ruined  man  in  a  year.  He  cannot  buy  puddling 
as  he  can  buy  pigs,  because  in  one  word  men  are  not  pig- 
iron.  Sentiment  this,  perhaps,  but  a  sentiment  which  can- 
not be  conquered,  and  produces  stern  facts.  For  the  fifty 
shillings'  worth  of  puddling  by  long  reflection  has  discovered 
that  to  the  making  of  iron  goes  the  enduring,  willing,  intelli- 
gent labour  of  many  trained  men;  that  it  is  work  which 
is  impossible  without  a  permanent  combination  of  will  and 


310  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

thought,  but  the  produce  of  which  may  be  unfairly  divided 
unless  all  act  with  a  spirit  of  mutual  defence  and  protection. 
They  see  their  employers  too  often  forgetting  this,  the  un- 
derlying fact  of  all  industry,  and  their  answer  is,  Union- 
ism. Sentimental !  emotional  economy  !  but  a  fact.  When 
pigs  and  bars  of  iron  exhibit  a  similar  phenomenon,  an 
iron-master  will  buy  his  fifty  shillings'  worth  of  puddling 
as  freely  as  he  buys  his  pigs  or  his  bars,  —  but  not  till  then. 

IV.  It  seems  almost  waste  of  time,  in  the  face  of  the  prev- 
alent tendency  of  working-men  to  unite,  to  argue  that  there 
is  not  the  slightest  necessity  for  it.  But  the  fact  that  with- 
out combination  the  capitalist  has  a  tremendous  advantage 
over  the  labourer  is  so  important  a  matter  in  this  discussion, 
that  it  may  be  well  to  examine  it  further.  Now  this  advan- 
tage arises  in  at  least  three  ways.  In  the  first  place,  although 
the  workmen  altogether  are  just  as  necessary  to  the  capi- 
talist as  he  is  to  them,  yet  in  a  great  factory  each  separate 
workman  is  of  infinitesimal  necessity  to  the  proprietor, 
whilst  he  is  of  vital  necessity  to  the  workman.  The  employer 
of  I  GOO  men  can  without  inconvenience  at  any  moment  dis- 
pense with  one  man  or  even  ten  men.  The  one  man,  how- 
ever, if  he  has  no  means  or  reserve  to  find  other  employ- 
ment, must  submit  on  pain  of  destitution  to  himself  and  his 
family.  In  the  same  way,  if  there  were  absolutely  no  con- 
cert or  communication  between  them,  the  employer  could 
easily  deal  with  every  one  of  his  thousand  hands  in  succes- 
sion, just  as  a  giant  could  destroy  an  army  if  he  could  get 
at  each  man  separately.  But  the  moment  they  agree  to 
act  together,  and  to  help  each  other  in  turn,  the  bargain  is 
equalised;  the  need  which  each  side  has  of  the  other  is  on 
a  par,  and  the  power  each  has  to  hold  its  ground  is  nearly 
equivalent. 


TRADES-UNIONISM  3 1 1 

In  the  second  place,  the  kind  of  need  which  each  has  of 
the  other  is  very  different.  The  capitaUst  needs  the  labourer 
to  make  larger  profits.  A  diminution  of  these,  their  total 
cessation,  and  positive  loss,  is  an  evil ;  but  it  is  an  evil  which 
most  capitalists  can  very  well  sustain,  and  often  experience, 
for  years  at  a  time.  A  strike  or  a  lock-out  is  a  blow  to  a 
capitalist ;  but  it  is  like  a  bad  debt  or  a  bad  speculation,  — 
it  is  an  incident  of  his  trade,  allowed  for  and  provided  against. 
But  to  the  workman  (who  would  not  be  a  workman  if  he 
had  even  a  little  capital)  the  stoppage  of  wages,  in  the  absence 
of  any  combination  or  fund,  means  utter  destruction,  disease, 
death,  and  personal  degradation,  eviction  from  his  house 
and  home,  the  sale  of  his  goods  and  belongings,  the  break-up 
of  his  household,  the  humiliation  of  his  wife,  the  ruin  of  his 
children's  bodies  and  minds.  To  the  capitalist  a  trade 
struggle  is  a  blot  in  his  balance-sheet.  To  the  workman, 
if  isolated  and  unaided,  it  means  every  affliction  which  the 
imagination  can  conceive. 

Thirdly,  this  is  a  question  in  which  time  is  all-important. 
To  the  capitalist  weeks  or  months  at  most  represent  pecu- 
niary loss.     To  the  unaided  workman  weeks  often,  to  say 
nothing  of  months,  are  simply  starvation  for  himself  and 
his  family.     Alone,  the  working-man  must  take  his  wages 
down  on  Saturday  night  at  a  fearful  discount.     If  he  could 
wait  for  his  money  he  would  get  them  in  full.     The  Dorset- 
shire  labourer,    ignorant    and   hopeless,    could   get   double 
wages  in  a  Northern  county  —  if  he  could  get  there.     He 
sometimes  knows  this;    but  he  will  not  leave  his  wife  and 
children  to  the  death  of  the  grave  or  the  workhouse.     If 
all  the  labourers  in  England  could  lie  in  bed  for  a  month 
during  harvest,  they  might  get  any  wages  they  liked  to  ask ; 
and  a  dozen  of  champagne  all  round.     Wages'  questions 
are  simply  questions  of  time,  and  capital  means  insurance 


312  NATIONAL    AND    SOCIAL    PROBLEMS 

against  time.  The  familiar  and  recognised  analysis  of 
labour  and  capital  comes  only  to  this  —  that  capital  forms 
the  store  by  which  the  workmen  are  supported  until  the 
joint  product  can  be  utilised  or  exchanged;  wages  are  only 
the  portions  of  this  store  meted  out  periodically  to  the  work- 
men whilst  they  are  uniting  and  labouring.  By  the  very  es- 
sence of  this  arrangement  the  possessor  of  this  store  (and  in 
the  abstract  no  man  is  the  possessor  of  it  except  by  the  free 
will  of  the  rest)  can  wait  his  own  time.  The  recipients  of  it 
cannot.  To  any  one  who  follows  out  all  these  considera- 
tions, it  may  well  seem  simple  pedantry  to  accumulate  argu- 
ments to  show  that  the  capitalist  and  the  individual  work- 
man are  on  equal  terms.  It  is  obvious  to  the  daily  experi- 
ence of  all  mankind  that  they  are  not ;  and  all  the  reasoning 
in  the  world  cannot  make  them  to  be  so. 

There  remains,  of  course,  to  be  noticed  the  competition 
of  the  employers.  This  is  the  sole  reply  of  the  other  side  to 
all  the  reasons  just  mentioned.  No  doubt  the  influence  of 
this  competition  is  very  great  —  without  it  the  workmen 
would  be  (what  they  occasionally  are)  at  the  mercy  of  the 
capitalists.  But  the  question  is,  whether  its  influence  is  so 
great  as  to  counterbalance  all  else  on  the  other  side,  and 
establish  an  equality.  Now  this  competition  of  the  em- 
ployers for  the  workmen  is  subject  to  two  very  important 
qualifications.  The  first  is  that  there  is  a  universal  and 
irresistible  tendency  in  all  employers,  which  (as  Adam  Smith 
shows)  is  much  more  powerful  and  efficient  in  the  smaller 
class  —  capitalists  and  sellers  as  against  the  workmen  and 
the  public  —  not  to  raise  wages  or  lower  prices.  This  is 
the  "silent  combination,"  which  needs  no  formal  expression 
and  generally  becomes  a  point  of  honour.  To  such  a  pitch 
is  this  carried  that,  for  instance  in  the  iron  trade,  the  asso- 
ciation practically  binds  its  members  to  fixed  prices  and 


TRADES-UNIONISM  313 

wages.  So  that  in  this  very  iron  trade  this  competition  of 
the  employers  for  the  men  does  not  exist.  As  a  last  resort 
the  employers  will  compete  against  each  other  for  the  work- 
men, but  they  know  it  is  a  suicidal  measure.  It  is  one  which 
their  small  numbers,  superior  foresight,  and  power  of  hold- 
ing over,  makes  them  able  to  dispense  with  except  at  the  last 
pinch.  And  it  is,  therefore,  but  sparingly  employed.  In  all 
North  Staffordshire,  the  scene  of  the  late  iron  strike,  there 
are  said  to  be  but  six  firms,  and  those  are  in  close  combina- 
tion.    Is  it  likely  they  bid  against  each  other  for  men? 

There  is  a  second  very  important  qualification,  also, 
which  neutralises  this  competition  of  the  capitalists  with 
each  other.  This  is  the  competition  of  the  workmen  with 
each  other.  Just  as,  if  left  quite  to  itself,  there  may  be  a 
tendency  amongst  employers  to  raise  wages  by  bidding 
against  each  other  for  "hands";  so  there  is  as  strong,  or  a 
stronger,  tendency  amongst  the  employed  to  lower  wages  by 
bidding  against  each  other  for  employment.  Sometimes,  if 
markets  are  very  brisk,  capital  seeks  labour;  but  more  often 
in  this  country  labour  seeks  capital.  With  our  redundant 
population  and  our  vast  reserve  of  labour-power  just  strug- 
gling for  life  —  that  incubus  of  destitute  and  unemployed 
labour  which  lies  so  heavily  on  all  efforts  of  our  artisans, 
hungering  for  their  places  —  the  common  state  of  things  is 
that  of  labourers  competing  for  employment. 

At  any  rate  competition  is  as  broad  as  it  is  long.  What 
the  employer  loses  by  it  when  business  is  pressing,  he  gains 
by  it  when  labour  is  plentiful.  And  this  competition,  one  so 
fluctuating  and  vast,  is  outside  any  conceivable  combination 
or  union  of  the  men.  Nothing  can  prevent  the  dregs  or  Helot- 
ism  of  labour  from  continually  underselling  it.  Surely  this 
use  of  competition  in  the  argument  is  thoroughly  one-eyed. 
We  are  told  that  for  the  workman's  protection  and  relief 


314  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

against  low  wages,  oppression,  or  sharp  practice,  there  is 
the  great  compensator,  the  competitions  of  the  masters. 
They  quite  overlook  the  fact  that  this  is  at  least  counterbal- 
anced by  the  competition  of  the  men.  Our  case  is  that  the 
individual  workman  has  to  struggle  incessantly  against  this 
competition  —  plus  the  position,  the  opportunities,  the  wait- 
ing and  reserve  power  which  his  capital  gives  to  the  employer. 
Why,  it  is  asked,  is  the  puddler  more  at  the  mercy  of  the 
great  capitalist  than  the  farmer  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  corn- 
dealer?  No  doubt  every  small  capitalist  is  at  a  great  disad- 
vantage in  dealing  with  a  very  great  capitalist.  But  the  dis- 
advantage of  the  mere  day  workman  in  dealing  with  his 
employer  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  this.  The  seller  of  all 
wares  has  a  certain  stock,  a  certain  reserve  power,  a  capital 
of  some  kind,  which  by  the  conditions  of  his  existence  the 
day  labourer  has  not.  The  former  can  wait  at  least  for 
some  time;  he  can  send  his  wares  from  market  to  market. 
To  the  mere  day  worker  it  is  often  this  market  or  none  — 
this  wage  or  none  —  lower  rates  or  starvation.  Now  under 
all  this  lies  the  fundamental  fallacy  which  distorts  the  reason- 
ing of  many  capitalists  and  most  economists.  We  come,  in 
fact,  to  the  root  of  the  matter.     The  labourer  has  not  got  a 

THING  TO  SELL. 

The  labour  market,  as  it  is  called  by  an  unhappy  figure, 
is  in  reality  totally  unlike  the  produce  market.  There  are 
three  grand  features  in  which  labour  differs  from  a  commodity. 
Firstly,  every  seller  of  wares,  even  a  hawker,  has  by  the 
hypothesis  a  stock,  a  realised  store,  a  portable  visible  thing  — 
a  commodity.  If  he  were  in  need  of  immediate  support  — 
that  is,  wages  —  he  would  not  be  a  seller  or  trader  at  all. 
The  trader  is  necessarily  relieved  of  all  immediate  and  cer- 
tainly of  all  physical  pressure  of  want.  The  difference  here 
between  ;)^ioo  and  nothing  in  infinite.     It  is  so  difficult  to 


TRADES-UNIONISM  315 

persuade  millionaires  that  the  whole  human  race  have  not 
got  private  capitals  and  sums  in  the  funds.  To  a  large  class 
of  working-men,  however,  it  is  a  daily  question  and  need  — 
get  bread  to-morrow,  or  die.  The  labourer  has  nothing  to 
fall  back  upon,  and  a  few  lost  hours  pull  him  down. 

In  the  second  place,  in  most  cases  the  seller  of  a  commod- 
ity can  send  it  or  carry  it  about  from  place  to  place,  and  mar- 
ket to  market,  with  perfect  ease.     He  need  not  be  on  the  spot 
—  he  generally  can  send  a  sample  —  he  usually  treats  by 
correspondence.     A  merchant  sits  in  his  counting-house,  and 
by  a  few  letters  and  forms  transports  and  distributes  the 
subsistence  of  a  whole  city  from  continent  to  continent.     In 
other  cases,  as  the  shopkeeper,  the  ebb  and  flow  of  passing 
multitudes  supplies  the  want  of  locomotion  in  his  wares. 
His  customers  supply  the  locomotion  for  him.     This  is  a 
true  market.     Here  competition  acts  rapidly,  fully,  simply, 
and  fairly.     It  is  totally  otherwise  with  a  day  labourer,  who 
has  no  commodity  to  sell.     He  must  be  himself  present  at 
every   market  —  which   means   costly   personal   locomotion. 
He  cannot  correspond  with  his  employer;   he  cannot  send  a 
sample  of  his  strength;   nor  do  employers  knock  at  his  cot- 
tage door.     This  is  not  a  market.     There  is  but  one  true 
labour  market:    where  the  negro  slave  is   (or  rather  was) 
sold  like  a  horse.     But  here,  as  in  the  horse  fair,  the  bargain 
is  not  made  with  the  negro  or  the  horse,  but  with  the  trader 
who  owns  them,  and  who  is,  strictly  speaking,  a  merchant 
freely  on  equal  terms  disposing  of  a  commodity.     But  if 
the  horse  or  the  negro  came  to  sell  himself,  what  sort  of 
bargain  would  he  make,  starving  in  the  very  market?    In  a 
word,  there  is  no  real  market,  no  true  sale  of  a  commodity, 
where  vendor  and  wares  are  one  and  the  same  —  and  that 
one   a   man  —  totally  without   resources   or  provisions   for 
himself  —  with  the  wants  of  a  citizen,  and  a  family  at  home. 


3l6  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

Thirdly  (and  this  is  the  important  point),  the  labourer  has 
not  got  a  commodity  to  sell,  because  what  he  seeks  to  do  is 
not  to  exchange  products,  but  to  combine  to  produce.     When 
buyer  and  seller  meet,  in  market  or  out,  the  price  is  paid,  the 
goods  change  hands,  they  part,  the  contract  is  complete, 
the  transaction  ends.     Even  where,  as  in  complex  dealings, 
the  bargain  is  prolonged,  it  is  a  dealing  in  specific  goods.     It 
is  not  the  formation  of  a  continuous  relation  which  for  the 
workman  at  least  absorbs  and  determines  his  whole  life.     If 
the  trader  fails  to  do  business  with  one  customer,  he  turns 
to  another.     The  business  over,  he  leaves  him,  perhaps  for 
ever.     In  any  case  the  contract  is  a  contract  for  the  sale 
{i.e.   simple   transfer)   of  one  specific  thing.     How  totally 
different  is  this  from  the  relations  of  employer  and  employed. 
This  is  permanent,  or  rather  continuous  —  it  involves  the 
entire  existence  of  one  at  least  —  it  implies  sustained  co-opera- 
tion.    This  is  no  contract  to  sell  something,  it  is  the  contract 
to  do  something,  it  is  a  contract  of  partnership  or  joint  activ- 
ity, it  is  an  association  involving  every  side  of  life.     The 
workman  must  live  close  to  his  work,  his  hours  must  conform 
to  it ;  the  arrangement  of  his  household,  his  wife's  duties  and 
occupations,  his  home  in  every  detail,  are  wholly  dependent 
on  the  terms  and  conditions  of  this  work.     The  person  by 
whom  he  is  employed,  and  certainly  the  class  of  employers, 
can  affect  him  for  good  or  evil  in  the  most  constant  or  vital 
manner.     His   whole   comfort,   peace,   and   success  —  very 
often  his  health  —  under  the   factory  system,   usually  his 
dwelling,  are  in  the  hands  of  this  same  employer.     By  a 
series   of  small   arrangements,  difficult  to  follow  in  detail, 
this  employer  can  make  his  position  satisfactory  or  intoler- 
able. 

Nothing  is  more  fallacious  than  to  call  labour  questions 
simply  a  matter  of  wages  or  money.     Quite  apart  from  the 


TRADES-UNIONISM  317 

price  of  the  labour,  there  are  in  most  trades  a  muhitude  of 
conditions  and  circumstances  which  make  the  whole  differ- 
ence to  the  well-being  of  the  workmen.  Do  men  know,  for 
instance,  the  life  of  a  London  bricklayer,  who  changes  his 
lodging  often  once  a  quarter,  and  often  walks  six  miles  before 
he  begins  his  ten-hour  day  at  six  o'clock?  Every  time  he 
has  to  change  his  employer  (who  at  most,  on  his  side,  has  to 
wait  till  he  gets  another  man),  the  workman  has  to  give  up 
his  home,  break  up  his  household,  separate  from  his  wife, 
draw  his  children  from  school,  and  suffer  infinite  differences 
affecting  his  comfort,  health,  and  plans.  A  few  weeks  out 
of  work  may  ruin  the  prospects  of  his  son,  injure  his  family's 
health,  turn  them  out  of  a  familiar  home,  and  change  him 
to  a  broken  man.  Let  us  remember  that  this  competition 
implies  the  constant  locomotion  of  families.  And  then  let 
us  trace  out  the  moral  and  mental  consequences  of  this 
chance  life.  Even  in  the  higher  branches  an  artisan  family 
lead  a  frightfully  nomad  existence.  Any  one  who  has  known 
working-men  in  their  homes  must  have  been  painfully  struck 
with  the  difficulty  of  tracing  them  after  a  few  months.  What 
would  be  the  feeling  of  our  middle  classes  to  be  subject  to 
a  similar  competition  —  a  competition  not  confined  to  their 
warehouses,  and  affecting  only  their  balance-sheet,  but  one 
which  tossed  about  their  homes  like  counters,  brought  them 
now  and  then  to  the  gate  of  the  workhouse,  and  rode  at 
random  over  every  detail  of  their  lives  ? 

Much  of  this  is  of  course  inevitable.  It  is  a  life  which 
happily  has  its  compensations.  But  what  concerns  us  now  is 
to  see  how  utterly  different  is  this  state  of  things  from  the 
selling  of  a  commodity.  What  sale  of  a  commodity  affects 
this  complex  network  of  human  relations?  It  would  be  as 
right  to  speak  of  every  trader  needing  a  partner,  every 
woman  ready  for  marriage,  every  applicant  for  a  post  of 


3l8  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

trust,  as  having  a  commodity  to  sell.  The  followers  of  Na- 
poleon and  Garibaldi  were  not  simply  men  having  a  commod- 
ity to  sell.  The  engagement  of  a  workman  for  hire  is,  as 
completely  as  these  cases  are,  an  instance  of  a  voluntary 
combination  of  energies  and  capacities.  The  union  of  capi- 
talist and  labourers  is,  in  the  highest  sense,  a  partnership  in- 
volving a  real  equality  of  duties  and  powers,  —  they  finding 
the  strength,  the  patience,  the  manual  skill,  the  physical  ex- 
haustion, —  he  finding  the  management,  the  machinery,  the 
immediate  means  of  subsistence,  and,  by  rights,  the  protec- 
tion of  all  kinds.  He  and  they  are  as  necessary  to  each  other 
as  men  in  any  relation  of  life.  They  can  affect  each  other 
as  intimately  for  good  and  for  bad  as  can  any  partners  what- 
ever. The  dignity  of  their  work  and  lives  rests  in  their 
knowing  and  performing  their  mutual  duties  and  their  com- 
mon tasks.  Applied  to  this  noble  and  intimate  relation  of 
Hfe  —  this  grand  institution  of  society  —  the  language  of 
the  market  or  of  barter  is  a  cruel  and  senseless  cant.  Nor 
will  any  sound  condition  of  labour  exist  until  the  captains 
of  Industry  come  to  feel  themselves  to  be  life-long  fellow- 
soldiers  with  the  lowest  fighter  in  the  Battle  of  Labour,  and 
have  ceased  to  speak  of  themselves  as  speculators  who  go 
into  one  market  to  buy  fifty  shillings'  worth  of  pig-iron,  and 
into  another  to  buy  fifty  shillings'  worth  of  puddling. 

It  is  essentially  for  this  sort  of  protection  that  unionism  is 
devised.  Any  one  who  regards  it  as  a  simple  instrument 
to  raise  wages  is,  as  Adam  Smith  says,  "as  ignorant  of  the 
subject  as  of  human  nature."  Unionism,  above  all,  aims  at 
making  regular,  even,  and  safe  the  workman's  life.  No  one 
who  had  not  specially  studied  it  would  conceive  the  vast  array 
of  grievances  against  which  unionism  and  strikes  are  di- 
rected. If  we  looked  only  to  that  side  of  the  question,  we 
should  come  to  fancy  that  from  the  whole  field  of  labour 


TRADES-UNIONISM  319 

there  went  up  one  universal  protest  against  injustice.  There 
is  a  "miserable  monotony"  of  wrong  and  suffering  in  it. 
Excessive  labour,  irregular  labour,  spasmodic  overwork, 
spasmodic  locking-out,  "overtime,"  "short  time,"  double 
time,  night  work,  Sunday  work,  truck  in  every  form,  over- 
lookers' extortion,  payment  in  kind,  wages  reduced  by  draw- 
backs, "long  pays,"  or  wages  held  back,  fines,  confiscations, 
rent  and  implements  irregularly  stopped  out  of  wages,  evic- 
tions from  tenements,  "black  lists"  of  men,  short  weights, 
false  reckoning,  forfeits,  children's  labour,  women's  labour, 
unhealthy  labour,  deadly  factories  and  processes,  unguarded 
machinery,  defective  machinery,  preventible  accidents,  reck- 
lessness from  desire  to  save,  —  in  countless  ways  we  find  a 
waste  of  human  life,  health,  well-being,  and  power,  which 
are  not  represented  in  the  ledgers  or  allowed  for  in  bargains. 
Let  any  one  read  such  a  Blue-book  as  that  on  the  employ- 
ment of  children,  which  contains  much  on  labour  generally. 
It  reads  like  one  long  catalogue  of  oppression.  Every  prac- 
tice which  can  ruin  body  and  spirit,  — -  every  form  of  igno- 
rance, disease,  degradation,  and  destitution  comes  up  in 
turn.  The  higher  trades,  as  that  of  the  iron-workers,  are 
free  from  many  of  these,  from  most  of  them,  but  overwork 
and  truck  and  forfeits.  But  take  the  records  of  any  trade, 
and  it  will  furnish  a  dark  catalogue  of  struggles  about  one  or 
more  of  these  grievances.  Take  the  Reports  of  the  Medi- 
cal Inspectors  to  the  Privy  Council,  of  the  Inspectors  of  Mines 
and  certain  classes  of  factories,  or  that  of  the  Staffordshire 
potteries.  Take  the  Report  of  the  Miners'  Association  often 
cited.  It  reads  like  one  long  indictment  against  the  reckless- 
ness of  capital  and  the  torpidity  of  the  legislature.  It  is  not 
that  each  individual  capitalist  produces  or  even  knows  such 
things.  Not  he,  but  the  system  is  at  fault.  The  wrong  each 
man  does  is  not  great,  —  that  which  he  does  intentionally  is 


320  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

very  small.  But  as  a  body  they  all  work  out  this  one  end 
blindly;  for  a  sophistical  jargon,  falsely  called  Economic 
Science,  has  trained  them  to  think  that  fifty  shillings'  worth 
of  puddling  —  that  is,  the  lives  of  men,  women,  and  children 
—  should  be  bought  and  sold  in  market  overt,  like  pigs  and 
bars  of  iron. 

Against  this  state  of  things,  as  yet,  the  only  organised  pro- 
tection is  unionism.  It  is  a  system  at  bottom  truly  conserva- 
tive, mainly  protective,  and  essentially  legal.  It  is  a  system 
still  quite  undeveloped,  and  most  defective,  and  often  deeply 
corrupted.  But  it  is  one,  it  must  be  remembered,  which  has 
as  yet  no  fair  chance.  It  is  proscribed  by  the  legislature,  and 
as  yet  unrecognised.  What  prospect  is  there  of  these  insti- 
tutions being  healthy,  well  managed,  and  moderate,  whilst 
they  cannot  get  the  legal  sanction  which  the  humblest  asso- 
ciation obtains?  They  can  hold  no  property,  bring  no 
action,  have  no  assistance  or  protection  from  the  law.  Just 
as  under  the  old  Combination  Laws  strikes  were  often  thor- 
oughly evil  in  their  action,  so  now  under  the  Association  Laws 
unions  are  forced  into  the  attitude  of  conspiracies.  These 
evils  are  mainly  due  to  the  craven  injustice  shown  to  them 
by  parliaments  of  employers.  But  even  now  they  are,  in 
the  main,  moderately,  honestly,  and  wisely  directed.  Their 
managers  are  sometimes  dishonest  adventurers;  their  sys- 
tem is  sometimes  corrupt;  but  there  is  not  a  tenth  of  the 
corruption  of  our  ordinary  railway  and  joint-stock  company 
system.  Sometimes,  however,  they  are  models  of  good  gov- 
ernment. Occasionally  they  call  out  men  of  the  finest  and 
noblest  political  instincts,  men  cast  in  the  very  mould  of 
Hampden. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  at  length  their  great 
deficiencies;  but  no  man  is  more  aware  how  far  they  fall 
short  of  what  is  wanted  than  the  present  writer.     In  the  first 


TRADES-UNIONISM  3Jil 

place,  they  are  simply  a  political,  practical,  temporary 
remedy  for  a  social  and  moral  evil.  The  real  cause  of  all 
industrial  evils  is  the  want  of  a  higher  moral  spirit  in  all 
engaged  in  industry  alike.  Social  and  moral  remedies 
alone,  in  the  long  run,  can  change  the  state  of  things  to 
health;  and  the  working-men  on  their  side  have  as  much 
to  learn  in  social  and  moral  duty  as  their  employers.  All 
this  (and  without  it  nothing  permanent  can  be  gained) 
unionism  totally  ignores,  and  even  tends  to  conceal  and 
choke.  Hence  a  keen  spirit  of  unionism  often  blunts  the 
members  of  a  strong  association  to  their  own  duties  and 
to  the  higher  wants  of  their  class.  If  small,  the  association 
too  often  fosters  a  narrow,  sometimes  a  most  selfish  spirit. 
Often  it  fosters  a  dull  temper  of  indifference  and  comfortable 
disregard  of  all  others  around.  It  often  encourages  the 
combative  spirit  and  a  love  of  visible  triumph.  Occa- 
sionally, as  at  Sheffield,  it  develops  cruel  tyranny.  Above 
all,  it  seriously  divides  trade  from  trade,  skilled  workmen 
from  unskilled,  unionist  from  non-unionist. 

These,  however,  are  all  evils  not  so  much  inherent  in 
the  nature  of  unions  as  caused  by  their  want  of  permanent 
and  legal  position,  public  recognition,  larger  extension, 
wider  combination,  and  higher  education.  The  grand 
evil  inherent  in  their  nature  is  that  they  are  simply  political 
expedients,  and  share  all  the  defects  of  political  remedies 
applied  to  social  diseases.  Still,  if  Reform  Leagues  and 
constitutional  agitation,  or,  in  the  last  resort,  organised 
resistance  to  oppression,  do  not  cure  the  maladies  of  the 
state,  they  are  essentially  necessary  —  and,  sometimes, 
are  the  first  necessity.  To  save  the  people  from  the  im- 
mediate injuries  of  bad  government  is  sometimes  the  very 
condition  of  all  other  effort  towards  improvement.  If 
working-men,  holding  by  their  union  for  simply  protective 


322  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

purposes,  would  turn  towards  other  measures  to  improve 
themselves,  to  learn  greater  self-control,  higher  education, 
and  purer  domestic  life,  their  ends  would  be  gained.  In 
the  meantime,  as  a  step  to  them,  as  giving  a  breathing  time 
and  support,  unionism  is  indispensable.  To  consolidate 
and  elevate  it  is,  perhaps,  the  working-man's  first  duty. 
For  in  the  midst  of  the  increasing  power  and  recklessness 
of  capital  one  can  see  no  immediate  safeguard  but  this 
against  the  ruin  of  the  workman's  life,  his  annihilation  as 
a  member  of  society  —  against  the  consequent  deteriora- 
tion of  the  community,  and  ultimate  social  revolution. 


Ill 

INDUSTRIAL  CO-OPERATION 

(1865) 

From  the  year  i860  I  was  associated  with  some  of  the  most 
ardent  apostles  of  the  Co-operative  Movement,  such 
as  Thomas  Hughes,  J.  Malcolm  Ludlow,  Lloyd  Jones, 
Dr.  Furnivall,  and  G.  J.  Holyoake;  and  I  shared 
their  interest  and  hopes  for  the  new  schemes.  With 
introductions  from  them  and  many  friends  in  the  North, 
I  visited  the  Pioneers  in  Rochdale,  and  attended  many 
Co-operative  committees  and  meetings  in  Lancashire  and 
Yorkshire.  Having  personal  knowledge  of  the  leaders 
and  their  methods,  and  having  made  a  study  of  their 
printed  Rules,  Tables,  and  Balance-sheets,  I  had  ample 
means  of  forming  an  estimate  of  their  work  and  prospects. 

I  saw  that,  whilst  the  system  of  "Distributive  Stores" 
was  a  real  success  and  was  destined  to  a  great  develop- 
ment, both  material  and  social,  the  attempt  to  found  Co- 
operative Production  for  the  general  market  was  a  petty 
and  unstable  incident  which  could  have  no  future.  And 
I  saw  that  the  hope  of  those  who  looked  for  Co-operative 
Production  to  reorganise  the  conditions  of  Labour  was 
an  idle  dream.  Co-operation  could  do  nothing  to  super- 
sede or  even  to  reform  the  current  system  of  Wages- 
earning. 

I  made  bold  to  tell  this  to  my  friends.    More  than 

323 


324  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

forty  years  have  passed;  and,  whilst  the  " S tores ^^  have 
had  a  marvellous  growth,  '^Production"  in  the  open 
market  is  still  a  drop  in  the  ocean  of  Labour.  "Co- 
operation" has  taught  more  than  two  millions  of  work- 
ing people  to  supply  themselves  with  necessaries  in 
methods  of  strict  economy  and  thrift.  It  has  not  enabled 
the  mass  of  the  proletariat  to  mend  the  conditions  of 
Labour  by  more  than  a  haifs  breadth.  On  the  contrary  it 
only  draws  off  some  admirable  men  from  turning  to 
deeper  and  wiser  means  of  salvation. 

The  "Stores"  have  continued  to  double  their  numbers 
and  their  business  with  every  decade.  For  independent 
"Production"  i.e.  manufactures  sold  to  other  than  "Co- 
operators,"  the  result  is  infinitesimal.  And  as  to  "Co- 
operative Production"  benefiting  workmen  who  are  not 
shareholders  or  members,  the  result  is  a  pitiable  minimum. 

The  excellent  account  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica, 
{vol.  xxvii.),  by  Mr.  Aneurin  Williams  {igo2),  which 
gives  a  total  business  of  more  than  75  millions,  sets  down 
the  profits  of  Productive  Societies  at  £i58,jij  —  and  a 
Dividend  on  Wages  of  £20,545  —  ^^^^  ^^^^  ^^  ^^  ^  trade 
of  three  millions  and  a  half. 

The  latest  work  on  Co-operative  Industry  that  I 
have  seen  is  by  Ernest  Ames  (igoy).  He  tells  us  in 
his  chapter  on  the  Productive  Societies  that  "  the  position 
of  Labour  is  very  similar  to  that  which  is  found  in  or- 
dinary well  and  considerately  managed  centres  of  in- 
dustry." Again  he  adds:  "Labour  is  left  by  the  great 
bulk  of  modern  co-operative  enterprise  in  an  unchanged 
economic  relationship."  That  is  exactly  the  warning 
I  gave  in  1865  to  my  friends,  the  Co-operators;  and 
it  is  sad  to  relate  the  disappointment  of  such  high  and 
worthy  hopes  {igo8). 


INDUSTRIAL    CO-OPERATION  325 

^^  Let  US  abandon  all  useless  and  irritating  discussion  as  to 
the  origin  and  distribution  of  wealth,  and  proceed  at  once 
to  establish  the  moral  rules  which  should  regulate  it  as  a 
social  function."  —  Augusts  Comte. 

Two  serious  attempts  to  raise  their  condition  are  being 
made  by  the  working  classes  from  their  own  spontaneous 
efforts.  Both  have  been  conceived,  elaborated,  and  main- 
tained by  their  unaided  instinct.  One  of  these  —  unionism 
—  has  been  abundantly  discussed.  The  other  is  co-opera- 
tion. The  first  is  the  political,  direct,  immediate  remedy 
for  industrial  wants.  The  second  is  more  nearly  the  social, 
gradual,  and  indirect  process.  Unionism  is  an  open  and 
organised  resistance ;  and,  pushed  to  the  extreme,  approaches 
to  political  insurrection.  Co-operation  is  an  effort  towards 
social  reform,  and  in  its  type  verges  on  social  revolution. 
Both  have  played,  and  are  destined  to  play,  a  large  part 
in  the  progress  of  industry.  Each  maintains  most  valuable 
truths  and  attains  many  excellent  results.  Both  are  of  the 
deepest  interest  to  the  social  enquirer.  Each,  however, 
is  imperfect  and  somewhat  one-sided.  Each  ignores  the 
very  important  side  which  the  other  represents.  To  esti- 
mate them  truly  they  must  be  viewed  at  the  same  glance 
and  judged  by  comparison. 

In  dealing  with  co-operation,  it  is  hardly  possible  to 
speak  in  a  much  more  judicial  and  critical  spirit  than  it 
is  in  speaking  of  unionism.  Trades  unions  have  been 
the  object  of  so  much  ignorant  abuse,  that  a  friendly  writer 
is  forced  into  an  attitude  of  controversy  and  almost  of  ad- 
vocacy. With  co-operation,  it  is  very  desirable  that  its 
weak  side  should  be  insisted  on  at  least  as  fully  as  its  strongest. 
Its  partisans  and  even  the  public  are  rather  inclined  to  ex- 
aggerate its  importance.     During  Elections  one  sees  many 


326  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

candidates  on  both  sides,  who  guard  themselves  from  be- 
traying many  definite  opinions,  loudly  proclaim  themselves 
in  favour  of  "co-operation."  Doubtless  it  would  have 
been  as  much  to  the  purpose  to  proclaim  themselves  staunch 
adherents  of  the  penny  post,  or  ardent  friends  of  the  half- 
holiday  movement.  Of  course,  as  the  Legislature  has, 
and  can  have,  nothing  to  do  with  co-operation,  it  was  totally 
out  of  place  in  candidates'  addresses.  And  many  of  them 
would  have  shrunk  from  the  great  revolution  which  "co- 
operation" really  is  in  the  minds  of  its  most  active  apostles. 
This,  however,  proved  that  it  is  considered  a  safe  thing  to 
profess;  and  serves  to  indicate  interest  in  social  questions. 
But  as  it  is  beset  by  no  prejudices  whatever,  it  is  only  right 
that  its  value  and  its  defects  be  impartially  brought  out; 
and  that  its  adherents  may  not  mislead  themselves  as  to  its 
promises. 

This  enquiry  is  specially  opportune,  as  the  annual  return 
of  the  Registrar  of  Friendly  Societies  is  now  before  us,  and 
we  are  able  to  take  stock  of  the  co-operative  movement 
from  official  authority.  On  the  31st  of  December  1864 
there  were,  according  to  this  return,  505  registered  societies 
spread  over  almost  the  whole  of  England,  in  town,  village, 
and  county.  The  total  number  of  members  (several  returns 
being  defective)  is  129,761,  the  share  capital  is  ;i^685,o72, 
the  loan  capital  is  ;^89,423,  the  assets  and  property  amount 
to  ;£89i,775,  the  business  done  in  the  year  is  ;^2, 742,957, 
and  the  profit  realised  is  ;^225,569.^  As  no  societies  neg- 
lected to  send  returns,  these  figures  would  probably  need 
to  be  corrected  by  an  addition  of  10  or  15  per  cent.  These 
societies  are  all,  with  very  few  exceptions  (almost  all  of  which 
decline  to  send  returns),  "stores"  for  the  sale  of  food  and 

'This  has  been  enormously  increased.  The  members  are  now  in  excess 
of  two  millions.  The  capital  is  nearly  30  millions  sterling  and  the  business 
75  millions  sterling  (1908), 


INDUSTRIAL   CO-OPERATION  327 

clothing.     The    average    profit,    it   will    be    seen,    amounts 
to  something  like  9  per  cent  (in  one  case  it  is  25  per  cent) 
on  the  business  done,  and  something  like  30  per  cent  (in 
some  cases  50  per  cent)  on  the  share  and  loan  capital.     Only 
thirteen  of  the  395  societies  that  make  returns  fail  to  show 
a  profit,  and  these  are,  with  one  notable  exception,  very 
small  or  young  companies  commencing  operations.     The 
profit  may  be  taken  as  enough  to  pay  a  dividend  of  is.  yd. 
in  the  pound  upon  all  purchases  after  payment  of  expenses, 
gifts,  depreciation,  and  ;^5  per  cent  interest  on  shares  and 
loans.     Many  of  the  principal  societies  far  exceed  this,  and 
the  famous  Pioneers  (by  no  means  a  single  instance),  after 
providing   for    interest    on   loans    and    shares,    educational 
fund,   reserve   fund,   depreciation   fund,   and   charity,   still 
paid  last  quarter  2s.  4d.  in  the  pound  on  members'  pur- 
chases.   A  return  this  which  railway  shareholders  might 
study  with  profit,  if  not  with  satisfaction ! 

This  success,  however,  which  can  be  measured  by  tabular 
statements,  is  far  the  smallest  portion.  The  indirect  effect 
of  co-operation  which  cannot  be  reduced  to  figures  is  vast 
and  pervading.  In  a  northern  city  which  had  long  suffered 
from  adulterated  flour,  a  co-operative  flour-mill  was  estab- 
lished. It  not  only  supplied  a  perfectly  pure  article  to  its 
own  large  body  of  members  and  customers,  but  (in  order 
to  stand  their  ground)  the  other  mills  of  the  city  were  obliged 
to  do  the  same.  The  first  thing  that  a  well-managed  and 
extensive  store  does  in  a  town  is  to  destroy  a  number  of 
useless  and  dishonest  shops  all  round  the  neighbourhood, 
the  second  is  visibly  to  reduce  destitution  and  the  poor- 
rates,  the  third,  where  it  is  very  strong,  is  to  diminish  strikes 
and  sensibly  improve  wages.  Whatever  stirs  the  active 
and  resolute  spirits  of  a  district  to  fresh  union,  patience, 
and   self-denial,   and   gives   them   a   considerable   common 


328  NATIONAL    AND    SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

fund  and  puts  a  small  sum  at  the  free  disposal  of  each,  at 
once  raises  their  tone  and  makes  them  independent  of  instant 
necessities.  And  the  change  is  one  which  in  different  ways, 
but  with  equal  distinctness,  makes  itself  felt  by  the  employer, 
the  clergyman,  the  schoolmaster,  the  publican,  and  the 
policeman. 

The  case  of  Rochdale  is  naturally  the  most  striking  that 
can  be  taken.     There  the  Pioneers  Society  alone  now  num- 
bers 5200  members,  with  a  capital  of  £'j  1,000,  and  an  annual 
business  of  ;,^2oo,ooo.     Associated  with  it  is  the  Corn-mill 
Society    and    the    Cotton    Manufacturing    Company,    both 
owned   and  worked   principally  by   the   same   class.     The 
effect  of  this  movement  on  the  town  is  most  obvious.     Dur- 
ing  the   worst   times  of   the   cotton   distress   the    Pioneers 
was  unshaken.     The  material  prosperity  and  well-being  of 
the  whole   town   has  received   an   impetus   from   it.     The 
"store"  has  affected  for  good  the  moral,  intellectual,  and 
industrial  tone  of  a  large  city.     Its  mere  existence  is  sufficient 
to  make  it  almost  secured  against  either  great  demoralisa- 
tion or  great  destitution.     The  importance  of  this  work  is 
recognised  by  all  classes  of  the  inhabitants.     There  have 
been  no  more  zealous  friends  of  the  movement  than  the 
clergy,  many  of  the  municipal  officers,  and  both  the  late 
and  the  present  representative  in  Parliament.     The  Roch- 
dale movement,  which  dates  from  1844,  owes  its  origin  and 
its  success  to  a  knot  of  men  of  very  remarkable  character 
and  ability.     There  were  amongst  the  founders  some  men 
of  real   mercantile   genius  —  men   who   might   have   made 
their   own   fortunes   ten   times   over  —  which   they   united 
with  the   power  of   inspiring   and   directing   their   fellows. 
Some  of  them  are  still  at  their  post  at  Rochdale,  rich    in 
nothing  but  the  gratitude  and  esteem  of  their  fellow-citizens, 
for  whilst  they  might  easily  have  raised  themselves  amongst 


INDUSTRIAL   CO-OPERATION  329 

the  great  millionaires  of  Lancashire  they  were  contented 
with  giving  prosperity  to  a  city  and  new  energy  to  the  work- 
ing classes  of  England. 

The  effect  of  a  very  flourishing  store,  and  even  of  a  small 
manufacturing  society,  in  one  of  the  northern  valleys,  where 
factories  are  more  or  less  shut  off  from  free  correspondence 
with  the  neighbourhood,  is  to  produce  a  very  perceptible 
rise  of  wages;  the  society,  either  as  a  bank,  or  as  an  em- 
ployer, often  as  both,  forms  a  reserve,  on  which  the  workman 
can  fall  back  if  dismissed.  But  of  course  this  result  is  only 
visible  when  isolation  or  local  circumstances  enable  a  single 
society  to  make  itself  felt.  Another  immediate  effect  is 
that  of  the  ready-money  system,  which  is  universally  and 
very  strictly  enforced  at  the  co-operative  shops.  They 
form  also  the  most  complete  and  valuable  savings-bank  — 
the  saving  being  effected  continually  upon  every  daily  pur- 
chase, retained  out  of  the  immediate  control  of  the  investor, 
and  usually  unperceived  by  him.  Thus  a  member  of  the 
Rochdale  store,  upon  every  pound  of  tea  or  piece  of  bacon 
which  he  buys,  drops  about  twelve  per  cent  of  the  price 
(the  ordinary  retailer's  profit)  into  his  money-box,  which 
at  the  end  of  the  year  comes  out  a  respectable  sum.  This 
process  is  locally  embodied  in  the  formula,  "the  more  one 
eats  the  more  one  gets."  A  species  of  savings-bank  with 
which  no  other  can  remotely  compare !  Adulteration  in 
goods  is  almost  invariably  and  completely  checked  by  a 
store.  Without  exception,  they  may  be  said  to  sell  per- 
fectly sound  and  fair  goods;  and  multitudes  of  working 
people,  who  never  knew  the  taste  of  pure  tea  or  coffee,  or 
wholesome  bread  or  flour,  have  become  very  sharp  critics 
as  to  quality,  for  they  purchase  wholesale,  by  their  agents, 
the  very  best  which  the  markets  offer. 

No    reasonable    observer,    however,    can    imagine    that 


330  NATIONAL  AND    SOCIAL    PROBLEMS 

accumulating  savings,  avoiding  debt,  obtaining  good  and 
cheap  food,  or  the  "making  a  pound  go  a  long  way,"  is 
the  sole  feature,  though  it  is  the  main  feature,  of  the  co- 
operative system.  Co-operation  now  numbers  a  large 
and  highly  organised  band  of  propagandists.  It  forms 
a  new  "persuasion"  in  itself,  with  all  the  machinery  and 
enthusiasm  of  a  religious  sect.  There  are  men  who  devote 
themselves  to  preach  and  extend  co-operation,  just  as  there 
are  men  who  devote  themselves  to  awakening  souls  or  ad- 
vocating temperance.  In  every  society  there  are  men  who 
give  their  time,  labour,  and  often  the  savings  of  their  lives, 
to  found  and  establish  a  new  "store"  or  to  bring  their  neigh- 
bours to  look  on  the  system  as  a  vital  truth.  The  "pledge," 
the  abolition  of  slavery,  free  trade,  and  "Bible  religion," 
have  never  been  preached  with  more  systematic  activity 
than  this  has.  It  has  its  organ,  its  lectures,  its  "confer- 
ences," its  dogmas,  its  celebrations,  and  it  would  not  be  an 
English  institution  if  it  had  not  its  testimonials  and  its 
subscription  funds. 

It  has  developed  a  style  of  thought  and  speech  which 
is  strangely  akin  to  that  of  a  religious  movement,  and  in 
co-operation  tracts  the  system  is  expounded  in  phrases 
which  are  in  familiar  use  with  reference  to  sacred  subjects. 
The  nucleus  of  many  a  flourishing  society  consists  of  men 
who  have  a  strong  impulse  for  social  improvement,  and 
whose  motives  are  at  least  as  strongly  the  benefit  of  their 
fellows  as  that  of  themselves.  No  one  can  read  the  Co- 
operator  regularly  without  seeing  that  it  records  a  move- 
ment in  which  some  of  the  finest  characters  and  spirits 
amongst  the  working  classes,  from  one  end  of  England  to 
the  other,  are  absorbed ;  without  admiring  the  energy, 
perseverance,  sagacity,  and  conscientiousness  which  these 
efforts  display;    without  learning  to  respect  the  spirit  of 


INDUSTRIAL   CO-OPERATION  33 1 

union,  faith,  and  self-sacrifice  which  they  frequently  exert. 
The  constant  acts  of  benevolence,  of  unflinching  patience, 
and  of  well-deserved  confidence,  with  which  co-operative 
records  are  full,  are  truly  touching.  Co-operative  poetry 
alone  forms  a  literature  in  itself;  and  in  the  Co-operator^ s 
pages  one  may  often  read  a  piece  full  of  terse,  vigorous  lines, 
which,  if  not  exactly  a  poem,  is  eloquent  versification.  Nor 
can  any  man  of  feeling  or  discernment  witness  a  really 
worthy  co-operative  celebration  —  see  those  Lancashire 
or  Yorkshire  workmen,  with  their  wives  and  children,  meet 
in  their  own  hall,  surrounded  by  their  own  property,  to  con- 
sider their  own  affairs  —  hear  them  join  in  singing,  some- 
times a  psalm,  sometimes  a  chorus  —  listen  to  the  homely 
wit,  the  prudent  advice,  the  stirring  appeal,  and  feel  the 
spirit  of  goodwill,  conviction,  and  resolution  in  which  they 
are  met  to  celebrate,  as  it  were,  their  escape  from  Egyptian 
bondage,  —  no  one,  if  present  at  such  a  meeting,  can  fail 
to  recognise  that  co-operation,  if  not  a  moral  or  social  move- 
ment in  itself,  has  had  the  benefit  of  many  high,  moral, 
and  social  tendencies  to  stimulate  and  foster  it. 

The  best  testimony  for  co-operation,  in  its  form  of  the 
"store"  system,  is  this  —  that  in  every  leading  town,  men 
recognised  as  the  most  able,  conscientious,  and  energetic  of 
their  order  amongst  the  working  classes,  will  generally  be 
found  active  supporters  of  the  "store";  and  those  amongst 
the  independent  and  educated  classes  who  sympathise  most 
earnestly  and  wisely  with  the  welfare  of  the  working  classes, 
will  be  found  to  acknowledge  its  claims  and  services.  No 
man  of  generous  feeling  can  help  being  moved  to  admiration 
when  he  recalls  the  homes  which  have  been  saved  and  bright- 
ened ;  the  weight  of  debt,  friendlessness,  destitution,  and  bad 
habits  which  have  been  relieved ;  the  hope  and  spirit  which 
have  been  infused  into  the  working  classes  by  this  single 


332  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

agency  —  the  co-operative  system.  It  has  come  successfully 
through  the  trial  of  the  cotton  distress;  it  is  spreading  into 
every  corner,  even  every  rural  village  in  England,  and  is 
firmly  established  in  Germany  and  France. 

It  is  precisely  the  great  influence  which  co-operation  now 
exercises,  and  the  very  high  qualities  which  are  devoted  to 
its  extension,  that  render  it  the  more  essential  to  examine  it 
closely  —  to  know  exactly  what  it  can  and  what  it  cannot 
do  —  what  are  its  defects  and  its  dangers.  The  men  who 
have  founded  and  support  these  institutions  are  far  too 
straightforward  and  resolute  to  fear  any  honest  judgment 
upon  their  efforts.  The  last  thing  that  they  would  choose 
would  be  any  attempt  to  shut  out  the  truth  from  themselves, 
or  any  one  else,  respecting  the  system;  and  once  convinced 
of  the  fairness  and  goodwill  of  the  counsellor  or  critic,  they 
will  attend  to  genuine  counsel  or  criticism  with  patience  and 
impartiality.  In  this  spirit  the  following  remarks  are  offered 
by  one  who  has  more  than  a  mere  goodwill  for  the  movement 
in  its  legitimate  sphere,  and  as  a  material  expedient ;  who  has 
a  strong  esteem  and  sympathy  for  it,  its  objects  and  its  ad- 
herents; who  recognises  in  it  and  them  some  of  the  very 
best  grounds  of  hope  now  extant;  and  who  desires  only  to 
define  somewhat  more  closely  the  true  scope  and  limits  of 
co-operation. 

Let  us  come  at  once  to  the  key  of  the  whole  position. 
Co-operation,  it  is  usually  said,  is  designed  to  elevate  the 
condition  of  labour  by  associating  capital  with  labour,  and 
by  giving  to  labour  an  equal  interest  with  capital  in  the 
results  of  production.  It  is  also  said  (and  with  truth)  to  be 
in  a  flourishing  condition,  and  to  have  firm  ground  to  rest 
on.  Now  what  is  the  case  actually?  Flourishing  as  co- 
operation clearly  is  in  a  pecuniary  sense  (with  the  exception 
of  a  very  small  number  of  manufacturing  societies  to  be 


INDUSTRIAL   CO-OPERATION  ;^T,;^ 

noticed  presently),  the  whole  of  the  co-operative  societies 
throughout  the  kingdom  are  simply  "stores,"  i.e.  shops  for 
the  sale  of  food,  and  sometimes  clothing.  These,  of  course, 
cannot  affect  the  condition  of  industry  materially.  Labour 
here  does  not  in  any  sense  share  in  the  produce  with  capital. 
The  relation  of  employer  and  employed  remains  just  the 
same,  and  not  a  single  workman  would  change  the  conditions 
of  his  employment  if  the  store  were  to  extinguish  all  the  shops 
of  a  town. 

In  such  an  extreme  case,  the  workmen  would  still  be  hired 
for  wages  in  the  ordinary  competition  of  labour,  for  the  shops 
do  not  employ  any  of  them.  The  cloth,  flour,  tea,  and  meat 
which  the  store  now  supplies,  have  all  been  made  under  the 
same  conditions  as  before,  and  are  simply  purchased  in  open 
market  in  the  ordinary  way.  The  cotton  goods  sold  at  the 
store  have  probably  been  grown  by  the  labour  of  negroes, 
and  manufactured  under  the  hardest  rule  of  competition. 
If  co-operation  (so  far  as  the  stores  are  concerned)  were 
developed  to  a  point  beyond  the  wildest  dreams  of  its  friends ; 
if  it  absorbed  the  entire  retail  trade  of  the  country,  and  there 
were  no  such  thing  as  a  shop  left  for  rich  or  poor,  it  would 
still,  for  any  direct  effect  it  has,  leave  the  "labour  market" 
just  where  it  found  it,  for  not  a  single  article  would  be  pro- 
duced (though  all  would  be  distributed)  in  a  different  way 
from  heretofore.  Hence  a  "store"  as  such,  does  not  affect 
the  true  labour  question  directly.  So  that  what  we  mean 
when  we  say  that  "co-operation"  is  a  great  movement,  is 
that  working-men  have  devised  a  highly  convenient  and 
economic  plan  of  buying  their  food  and  part  of  their 
clothing. 

No  doubt  there  is  the  whole  indirect  effect  of  this  system, 
the  freedom  from  debt,  the  accumulation  of  saving,  the  busi- 
ness experience,  and  all  the  countless  other  advantages  which 


334  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

we  have  set  forth  and  urged  in  preceding  pages.  No  one  can 
overlook  them,  and  scarcely  can  exaggerate  them.  But  these 
are  in  themselves  purely  economic  arrangements  of  practical 
convenience,  and  cannot  affect  the  social  conditions  of  labour 
otherwise  than  as  economic  arrangements  can.  The  prac- 
tice of  savings  banks  is  a  highly  useful  economic  arrangement, 
which  has  done  a  vast  amount  of  good.  So  is  the  penny  post. 
The  ready-money  principle  is  a  valuable  rule.  The  practice 
of  accumulating  savings,  of  not  living  up  to  one's  income,  the 
habit  of  regular  economy,  of  giving  a  fair  price  for  a  sound 
article,  as  also  the  habit  of  early  rising,  are  excellent  bits  of 
worldly  wisdom  to  which  the  successful  man  often  attributes 
his  wealth.  But  these  things,  useful  as  they  are,  especially 
as  contributing  to  a  rise  in  life,  are  not  vital  movements  of 
society  or  new  revelations.  They  form  merely  the  mode  in 
which  the  capitalist  classes  have  amassed  their  wealth,  and 
they  are  often  most  conspicuously  practised  by  men  who 
have  won  and  who  use  their  wealth  in  the  worst  way. 

The  very  men  with  whom  labour  has  had  the  hardest 
struggle,  are  just  those  who  exemplify  the  value  of  these  rules. 
And  it  is  significant  that  the  men  who  are  the  most  earnest 
advocates  of  this  species  of  economic  prudence,  are  just  the 
men  who  are  known  as  the  most  hardened  followers  of  the 
barrenest  schools  of  political  economy,  to  whom  Competition 
is  a  sort  of  social  panacea  and  beneficent  dispensation.  It 
can  hardly  be  that  industry  is  to  be  regenerated  simply  by 
the  working  classes  coming  to  practise  the  penny-wise  eco- 
nomics of  the  getters  of  capital.  It  is  much  to  be  desired  that 
this  useful  kind  of  prudence  was  more  common.  But  if 
co-operation  is  to  end  in  simply  putting  £5  or  ;i^io  into  safe 
investments  for  working-men,  it  is  scarcely  worthy  of  the 
fervent  language  which  addresses  it  as  a  new  gospel  of  the 
future,  or  of  poems  to  celebrate  its  noble  mission  upon  earth. 


INDUSTRIAL  CO-OPERATION  335 

We  might  as  well  expect  them  to  be  produced  about  a  goose 
club. 

There  is  no  mystery  about  co-operation,  nor,  indeed,  any- 
thing very  original.  Railways  and  joint-stock  companies  in 
general  are  simply  co-operative  societies;  so  is  a  goose  club, 
so  are  all  the  clubs  in  Pall  Mall.  The  new  working-men's 
clubs  are  so  still  more,  and  this  admirable  movement  pos- 
sesses also  a  great  many  of  the  advantages  of  the  co-operative 
system,  and  is  free  from  some  of  its  defects.  In  fact,  wher- 
ever a  number  of  persons  join  their  small  capitals  into  one 
capital,  of  which  they  manage  to  share  the  profit  or  the 
benefit  (a  system  as  old  at  least  as  the  Romans),  a  true 
co-operative  society  exists.  No  doubt  there  are  no  companies 
(or  very  few)  in  which  the  subdivisions  of  shares  are  so  small 
and  the  facilities  so  great  as  to  enable  working-men  to  invest 
out  of  their  savings.  But  that  is  only  an  accident.  It  is 
quite  easy  to  conceive  a  joint-stock  company  with  very  small 
shares,  for  some  petty  local  object,  very  much  connected 
with  the  working  class  —  and  many  land  and  building  socie- 
ties are  thus  connected  —  which  would  be  (many  of  them 
now  are)  classed  strictly  as  co-operative  societies. 

There  are  plenty  of  such  little  speculations,  got  up  by 
pushing  men  of  the  people,  owned  and  managed  by  them 
and  their  friends,  which  figure  in  the  long  list  of  the  co- 
operative roll.  They  are  very  useful  institutions,  which  bring 
a  good  dividend  to  the  prudent  investor  —  and  so  are  gas 
companies.  Now  the  "stores"  offer  a  number  of  useful  and 
incidental  advantages  which  very  few  companies  do.  But  in 
principle  "stores"  are  joint-stock  companies  for  the  sale  of 
food  and  clothing.  As  such  they  are  doing  a  vast  amount 
of  good;  but  the  industrial  question  is  not  solved,  or  even 
materially  affected,  because  working-men  have  devised  and  de- 
veloped a  very  useful  form  of  the  joint-stock  company  system. 


336         NATIONAL  AND  SOCIA.L  PROBLEMS 

But  as  we  have  shown  above,  a  man  must  be  very  short- 
sighted to  see  nothing  more  than  this  in  the  system  as  it  now 
exists.  There  is  a  great  deal  more,  only  it  is  entirely  sub- 
ordinate and  very  indefinite.  There  is  a  widespread  wish 
for  social  improvement,  a  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  and  an  un- 
selfish enthusiasm  which  is  very  general  in  the  movement. 
Gas  companies  do  not  subscribe  to  help  each  other  in  diffi- 
culties. Railway  companies  are  not  given  to  educational 
funds.  Directors  do  not  usually  give  their  services  gratui- 
tously. Joint-stock  companies'  meetings,  when  they  declare 
a  dividend  or  dead  loss,  do  not  straightway  sing  a  hymn,  and 
appeal  to  each  other,  with  tears  in  their  eyes,  to  stand  like 
men  to  the  Limited  Liability  Act. 

There  is  something  in  this  movement  not  explicable  by 
love  of  cash.  But  all  this  amounts  to  no  more  than  that  some 
very  noble,  earnest,  and  powerful  spirits  have  thrown  them- 
selves into  the  movement.  It  is  part  of  the  social  feeling  and 
the  strong  sympathy  which  marks  every  effort  of  the  genuine 
sons  of  labour  in  England,  and,  indeed,  in  Europe.  But  if 
it  is  a  true  part  of  co-operation  at  all,  it  is  a  part  so  indefinite, 
so  ill-understood,  and  so  very  much  disputed,  that  it  cannot  be 
said  to  be  more  than  an  adjunct.  In  itself,  simply,  co-operation 
is  a  joint-stock  system  for  the  association  of  small  capitals. 
This  has  been  practised  by  the  rich  for  centuries,  without 
any  particular  moral  or  social  result.  The  prospectuses  of 
new  companies  contain  everything  except  homilies  on  the 
beauty  of  association.  But  the  moral  and  social  spirit  which 
undoubtedly  often  accompanies  co-operation  is  so  very  little 
defined,  and  is  so  devoid  of  any  principle,  system,  or  recog- 
nised rule  whatever,  that  it  cannot  keep  its  ground  beside 
the  practical  clear  end  of  a  good  dividend.  Co-operation 
may  mean  either  the  making  and  saving  of  money,  or  the 
joint  labour  of  all  for  all.     It  may  also  mean  partly  one, 


INDUSTRIAL   CO-OPERATION  337 

partly  the  other.  But  if  so,  the  relative  proportions  and 
limits  of  these  two  must  be  determined.  Until  this  is  done, 
co-operation  is  a  mere  form  of  pecuniary  investment. 

Now  this  question  is  all  the  more  essential  because  no 
candid  friend  of  the  movement  can  deny  that  it  is  one  on 
which  its  supporters  are  wholly  divided.  Most  societies 
have  within  them  more  or  less  distinctly  two  parties,  the  one 
the  men  who  look  on  the  system  as  an  economic,  the  other  as 
a  social,  instrument.  The  first  are  sincerely  desirous  to 
become  and  to  see  their  fellows  become  small  capitalists; 
and  then,  in  the  words  of  one  of  the  addresses,  "the  great 
problem  of  social  economy  is  for  the  working  classes  to  keep 
themselves  with  their  own  money."  These  men  look  on 
anything  else  as  Communism,  and  they  are  strict  Political 
Economists.  The  other  party  fervently  desire  to  see  a 
system  in  which  the  share  of  capital  in  profit  is  reduced,  and 
in  which  capital  freely  devotes  part  of  its  profit  to  labour; 
and  these  men  are  disciples  of  some  kind  of  Socialist  scheme, 
and  very  often  previously  Owenites  or  actual  Communists. 
The  latter  are  the  more  enthusiastic,  the  former  are  the  better 
men  of  business.  Both  are  useful,  but  they  differ,  as  the  dis- 
cussions and  divisions  in  the  societies  show.  At  present  the 
economic  school  always  carries  the  greatest  weight  and  a 
majority  of  votes.  The  result  is  generally  a  friendly  com- 
promise ;  and  an  address  which  opens  with  a  fervent  call  to 
the  members  to  "elevate  themselves  by  making  money," 
closes  with  a  motto  in  verse. 

Each  for  all,  and  all  for  each, 
Helping,  loving  one  another. 

There  is,  however,  a  certain  poetic  vagueness  often  about 
the  social  element.  Facts  and  acts  are  distinct ;  and,  I 
believe,  there  is  now  no  co-operative  society  existing  which 


^^S  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

gives  any  substantial  part  of  its  income  to  others  than  the 
members  who  share  the  capital.  There  are,  however,  unmis- 
takably two  real  sections  in  the  co-operative  world,  and  also 
in  its  friends:  those  who  desire  to  see  the  privileges  and 
power  of  capital  extended  to  working-men  by  their  becoming 
capitalists;  and  those  who  desire  to  see  working-men  re- 
lieved, by  capital  being  deprived  of  much  of  its  privileges 
and  its  power.  These  two  parties,  though  quite  friendly, 
are  widely  different,  and  at  present,  in  the  division  list,  the 
former  have  their  way. 

In  the  face  of  this  great  fact,  which  contains  the  key  of 
co-operation  as  a  social  system,  it  is  needless  to  consider  the 
value  of  the  general  principles  which  are  vaguely  supposed 
to  be  connected  with  it.  They  can  have  no  stability,  for  they 
do  not  rest  on  any  accepted  set  of  truths,  or  any  recognised 
principle  of  action.  One  man  writes  to  ask  the  Co-operator 
if  Sunday  trading  is  not  contrary  to  the  ''true  principle  of 
co-operation."  The  editor  of  that  useful  and  instructive 
periodical  plainly  considers  that  alcohol  is;  and  he  vigor- 
ously calls  to  order  a  "store"  which  ventured  to  sell  beer. 
Of  course,  co-operation  has  no  more  to  do  with  teetotalism 
than  it  has  with  Methodism. 

If  "co-operation"  means  a  general  term  for  all  the  moral 
and  prudential  virtues,  or  rather  for  what  each  man  takes 
these  to  be,  it  means  nothing.  Nothing  so  vague  can  make 
any  great  effect.  The  thoughtful  men  amongst  the  working 
classes  know  well  that  for  the  permanent  improvement  of 
their  order  much  more  remains  than  that  some  should  save 
a  little  money,  and  all  buy  cheaper  and  better  food.  Social 
wants  require  social  remedies,  and  such  things  are  mere 
delusions  unless  they  are  based  on  sound  social  philosophy. 
Modem  life  is  not  so  simple  a  thing  that  it  can  be  reformed 
by  prudent  maxims,  with  or  without  fine  sentiments.     Nor 


INDUSTRIAL  CO-OPERATION  339 

is  our  industrial  system  so  feeble  a  matter  that  it  can  be 
moved  by  vague  professions  of  good-fellowship.  Stripped  of 
this,  co-operation  is  one  of  the  best,  perhaps  far  the  best,  of 
economic  expedients  for  increasing  the  comfort,  health,  and 
happiness  of  the  poor  man's  home;  but  as  such  it  cannot 
claim  to  have  solved  or  even  dealt  with  the  industrial  prob- 
lems of  society.  As  a  system  under  which  labour  is  to  gain 
a  new  position,  and  stand  on  fairer  terms  with  capital,  it  has 
yet  everything  to  do;  for  it  has  neither  done  nor  even  sug- 
gested anything  tangible. 

We  have  hitherto  purposely  kept  out  of  view  the  real 
manufacturing   societies.     These   are   co-operative   societies 
which  are  employers  of  labour.     Here,  then,  the  system  does 
grapple  with  the  position  of  labour  and  capital.     But  what 
is  the  result?    As  a  test,  the  experiment  is  scarcely  favour- 
able.    The  manufacturing  societies  are  extremely  few,  they 
are  not  yet  exactly  successful  as  speculations,  and  they  do 
nothing  but  pay  the  labourer  his  ordinary  market  wages.     They 
are  chiefly  flour-mills  and  cotton-mills.     Now  the  flour-mills 
have  paid  large  and  regular  dividends,  have  done  a  con- 
siderable business,  and  have  been  admirably  managed,  and 
of  course  have  had  their  hard  times.     But  these  are  not 
strictly  manufacturing  societies;    they  supply  chiefly  their 
own  members  and  other  co-operative  societies,  and  may  be 
more  property  classed  with  the  "stores."     The  amount  ex- 
pended in  labour  is  extremely  small  compared  with  that  for 
raw  material  and  plant.    They  naturally  employ  at  times 
workmen  unconnected  with  the  society;    but  I  have  never 
understood  that  mere  workmen  employed  by  them  ever  re- 
ceive anything  but  the  market  rate  of  wages,  or  any  particular 
advantage,   privilege,   or  perquisite.     Nor  do  I  think  any 
societies  in  the  kingdom  remunerate  their  ordinary  work- 
people in  any  other  way  than  the  usual  mode.     Frequently 


340  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

these  people  are  shareholders,  but  very  often  are  not;  and 
in  any  case  the  society,  or  rather  company,  wanting  labour, 
goes  into  the  market,  and  gives  the  price  of  labour  as  fixed 
by  competition;  just  as  a  railway  company  does.  The  fact 
that  the  holders  of  the  shares  in  the  "store"  or  "mill"  are 
for  the  most  part  (they  are  not  always)  real  working-men,  is 
a  very  important  and  interesting  fact;  but  it  does  not  affect 
the  conditions  of  labour,  or  add  appreciably  to  the  wages  of 
their  "hands." 

The  flour-mills  apart  —  which  are  very  successful  and  use- 
ful modes  of  making  money  —  the  other  manufacturing 
societies  are  insignificant,  until  we  come  to  the  cotton-mills. 
Here  and  there  an  association  of  bootmakers,  hatters,  paint- 
ers, or  gilders  is  carried  on,  upon  a  small  scale,  with  vary- 
ing success.  The  plate-lockmakers  of  Wolverhampton  (who 
have  been  recently  carrying  on  a  struggle  with  the  competing 
capitalists  so  gallantly)  are  another  instance.  But  small 
bodies  of  handicraftsmen  (or  rather  artists)  working  in  com- 
mon, with  moderate  capital,  plant,  and  premises,  obviously 
establish  nothing.  The  only  true  instances  of  manufactur- 
ing co-operative  societies  of  any  importance  are  the  cotton- 
mills.  During  the  great  cotton  fever  which  preceded  the 
distress,  several  mills  were  started  or  projected.  Some  of 
them  for  a  time  seemed  promising.  The  great  Lancashire 
famine,  however,  came  on  them  almost  before  they  had  got 
to  work;  and  it  would  be  impossible  to  draw  any  inference 
whatever  from  them.  Some  of  the  mills,  however,  never  got 
to  work  at  all.  Some  took  the  simple  form  of  ordinary  joint- 
stock  companies,  in  few  hands.  Others  passed  into  the 
hands  of  small  capitalists,  or  the  shares  were  concentrated 
amongst  the  promoters.  . 

There  is  now,  I  believe,  no  co-operative  cotton-mill  owned 
by  working-men  in  actual  operation  on  any  scale,  with  the 


INDUSTRIAL  CO-OPERATION  34 1 

notable  exception  of  Rochdale.  The  Rochdale  mill  deserves 
consideration  by  itself.  Rochdale,  it  is  well  known,  is  in  a 
special  sense  the  cradle  of  co-operation.  As  Mr.  Holyoake 
tells  us  in  his  admirable  account  of  its  rise  there  in  1844, 
"Human  nature  must  be  different  at  Rochdale  from  what  it 
is  anywhere  else."  Its  rise  may  be  distinctly  traced  to  the 
influence  of  Owenism,  and  some  of  its  leading  promoters 
there,  besides  being  men  of  real  industrial  genius,  are  deeply 
imbued  with  many  valuable  principles  which  Robert  Owen 
upheld.  The  Rochdale  cotton-mill  once  bid  fair  to  be  an 
extraordinary  success  in  a  commercial  view.  Their  buildings 
are  not  surpassed  by  any,  and  equalled  by  few,  in  the  county ; 
their  management  has  been  cautious  and  able;  their  credit 
stands  in  the  money-market  even  higher  than  that  of  neigh- 
bouring capitalists;  they  weathered  the  storm  of  the  cotton 
distress  perhaps  better  than  any,  being  almost  the  last  to 
close  and  the  first  to  open;  and  they  are  now  running  full 
time.  They  have,  in  fact,  proved  that  it  is  quite  possible  for 
a  cotton-mill  (at  any  rate)  to  be  worked  on  the  largest  scale, 
with  a  successful  result,  on  the  co-operative  principle. 

What,  however,  they  have  not  proved  is  the  possibility  of 
a  mill  being  wholly  owned  by  those  who  work  it,  and  of  labour 
receiving  more  than  the  ordinary  market  share  of  the  profits. 
The  mill  was  founded  on  the  principle  of  dividing  all  profits 
(after  satisfying  all  expenses  and  the  interest  on  fixed  capital) 
equally  between  the  shareholders  and  the  workmen,  every 
;;^ioo  received  in  wages  counting  in  the  distribution  of  the 
dividend  the  same  as  every  ;^ioo  invested  in  shares.  This 
principle  was  a  real  experiment  to  institute  a  new  condition 
of  labour.  The  mill  had  not  worked  long,  however,  before 
(in  1861)  this  principle,  after  a  severe  struggle,  was  aban- 
doned, and  no  efforts  of  the  minority,  backed  by  many  in- 
fluential friends  of  the  movement,  have  succeeded  in  restor- 


342  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

ing  it.  This,  therefore,  in  the  great  home  of  co-operation, 
has  for  the  present  decided  the  issue.  The  question  how  to 
give  the  labourer  a  larger  share  of  the  profits  has  failed  of 
solution.  A  body  of  co-operative  capitalists,  it  is  there  seen, 
hire  and  pay  their  own  workmen  on  the  ordinary  terms  of  the 
market,  and  under  the  rule  of  simple  competition.  This  is 
the  greatest  blow,  in  fact,  which  the  system  has  ever  yet 
sustained,  and  is  one  which,  if  it  cannot  be  reversed,  stamps 
it  as  incompetent  to  affect  permanently  the  conditions  of 
industry.  In  spite  of  all  efforts  which  faith,  hope,  and 
charity  make  to  conceal  it,  this  decision  has  planted  a  deep 
root  of  division  amongst  the  co-operative  body,  and  has 
broken  the  confidence  of  their  most  zealous  friends.  Some 
of  the  most  active  friends  of  the  movement  as  loudly  justify 
it  as  others  loudly  condemn  it.  And  a  long  controversy  has 
been  carried  on  with  great  energy  and  no  result.  But  a  vote 
of  the  whole  body  of  co-operators  would  undoubtedly  show 
for  the  economic  party  an  overwhelming  majority. 

But  it  may  be  said  that,  supposing  co-operation  distinctly 
to  surrender  or  disclaim  every  thought  of  affecting  the  exist- 
ing conditions  and  rights  of  capital,  it  is  fulfilling  a  great  mis- 
sion if  it  enables  the  workmen  to  share  the  capital ;  and  the 
Rochdale  cotton-mill,  although  it  does  not  divide  its  profits 
amongst  its  workmen,  still  pays  them  as  shareholders,  and  in 
one  way  or  other  the  workmen  themselves  obtain  the  share  of 
the  profits,  and  gain  the  security  and  independence  of  an 
invested  fund.  Unfortunately  this  is  not  so.  The  shares  of 
this  mill  are  now  in  a  very  large  proportion  held  by  men  who 
are  not  workmen  in  it,  and  not  a  small  proportion  is  held  by 
men  who  are  not  now  working-men  at  all.  The  number  of 
shares  owned  by  the  ordinary  "hands"  is  not  sufficient  to 
establish  any  very  important  principle.  And  until  this  is 
the  case,  and  that  permanently,  nothing  decisive  is  done. 


INDUSTRIAL  CO-OPERATION  343 

It  is  an  instructive  fact  that  a  number  of  men  who  are,  or 
have  been,  receiving  weekly  wages,  should  own  and  manage 
important  cotton-mills.  But  as  half  the  fortunes  in  Lan- 
cashire have  been  created  by  such  men  individually,  there  is 
nothing  astounding  in  the  fact  that  an  association  of  them 
can  do  the  same.  Can  it  be  regarded  as  the  herald  of  a  social 
and  moral  millennium  that  a  large  mill  is  worked  by  a  com- 
pany which  consists  of  the  managers,  foremen,  and  principal 
workmen  in  it,  of  several  well-to-do  men  who  have  been 
working-men  and  have  accumulated  savings,  and  of  some  of 
the  small  shopkeepers  of  a  town?  Let  all  men  save  money 
that  can,  but  society  need  feel  no  special  enthusiasm  at  the 
fact  that  several  hundreds  of  working-men  are  able  to  retire 
upon  comfortable  incomes. 

Now  to  that,  be  it  said  with  all  regret  and  soberness,  the 
Rochdale  cotton-mill  seems  tending  under  its  present  regime. 
If  it  has  not  reached  it  yet,  it  seems  certain  that  in  the  course 
of  time  it  must.  The  process  is  very  obvious  to  any  one  who 
knows  how  these  things  work.  A  body  of  resolute  working- 
men,  full  of  enthusiasm  and  self-reliance,  start  a  manufactur- 
ing society  together.  The  shares  cannot,  of  course,  be  in- 
alienable, which  is  opposed  to  all  modern  requirements.  If 
the  concern  has  only  a  margin  of  profit,  they  struggle  on 
heroically,  and  often  carry  out  their  principle  for  a  long  time. 
But  then  the  experiment  is  of  doubtful  commercial  success. 
If  the  concern  thrives  greatly  and  rapidly,  the  tendency  of 
capital  is  to  rush  in  and  absorb  the  shares  as  a  simple  invest- 
ment. Again,  the  shares  naturally  aggregate  into  a  few  hands. 
Both  these  tendencies  are  felt  in  all  successful  manufacturing 
societies.  They  have  the  greatest  difficulty,  and  have  devised 
all  sorts  of  ingenious  devices,  with  little  result,  to  prevent 
them.  But  do  what  they  will,  the  shares  get  more  and  more 
into  the  hands  of  men  of  some  small  capital.     The  nearer 


344  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

this  limit  is  reached,  the  more  completely  does  the  concern 
become  a  simple  joint-slock  company.  Some  of  the  work- 
men suffer  domestic  privations,  some  are  improvident,  some 
cease  v^^ork  and  bequeath  their  shares,  and  in  countless  v^ays 
the  workmen  cease  to  hold  the  shares. 

The  process  is  very  rapid,  and  occurs  under  all  conceiv- 
able conditions.  Even  if  the  strictest  provisions  existed, 
nothing  can  prevent  capitalists  at  last  owning  shares,  —  or 
shares,  at  best,  accumulating  in  the  hands  of  the  more  fortu- 
nate or  more  skilful  shareholders.  And  even  if  this  were 
done,  nothing  can  prevent  the  shareholders  personally  becom- 
ing richer  men.  A  capital,  we  may  suppose,  of  ;^5o,ooo  is 
invested  in  a  mill  employing  500  men,  who  equally  own  the 
shares  at  the  rate  of  ;^ioo  apiece.  If  trade  is  very  good,  and 
the  profits  as  great  as  they  used  to  be,  each  of  these  men,  if 
he  retained  his  own  shares,  and  was  very  industrious,  pru- 
dent, and  economical  —  and  to  succeed  most  of  the  members 
must  be  this  —  will  own  in  course  of  years  several  hundred 
pounds.  Is  it  conceivable  that  a  body  of  workmen,  each 
owning,  for  instance,  £500,  will  continue  one  and  all  at  the 
loom  and  the  spindle  ?  Or  would  they  when  each  was  worth 
;^iooo?  Certainly  not.  Why  should  they?  Indeed,  a  man 
who  has  shown  great  aptitude  in  employing  capital  and 
accumulating  wealth,  is  impelled  by  every  instinct  of  our 
nature,  and  habit  of  our  civilisation,  to  say  nothing  of  being 
probably  bound  by  every  claim  of  domestic  and  social  duty, 
to  devote  his  talent  and  energy  to  the  employment  of  capi- 
tal, and  to  cease  to  spend  his  life  in  running  after  a  "mule." 
A  working-man  begins  to  own  a  small  capital ;  the  qualities 
which  have  acquired  it  soon  make  it  a  larger  capital  (in 
Lancashire  very  soon) ; '  directly  he  is  a  real  capitalist  he 
ceases  to  be  one  of  the  employed,  and  becomes  one  of  the 
employers;   and  as  co-operation  has  simply  enabled  him  to 


INDUSTRIAL   CO-OPERATION  345 

become  a  capitalist,  and  refuses  to  alter  the  condition  of  the 
employed,  merely  as  such,  the  man  soon  becomes  an  em- 
ployer of  the  ordinary  type. 

It  is  not  worth  much  to  say  that  these  small  capitalists,  who 
have  been  actual  working-men,  will  know  and  feel  the  posi- 
tion of  their  workmen.  Unfortunately  the  successful  working- 
men  are  not  those  whom  their  class  have  most  reason  to  love. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  closest  men  of  business  are  those 
who  have  risen  from  the  ranks,  whose  formula  is,  "What 
was  good  enough  for  me,  is  good  enough  for  them."  And 
working-men  well  know  that  if  the  hardest  masters  are  the 
men  who  have  risen  out  of  their  own  order,  the  hardest  of 
all  is  a  trading  company  of  such  men.  It  does  not  appear 
that  co-operative  societies,  as  a  rule,  have  very  much  to 
boast  of  in  their  treatment  of  their  own  work-people.  It  will, 
perhaps,  be  agreed  that  at  many  stores  the  servants  are 
rather  closely  and  sparingly  treated  than  otherwise.  It  is 
quite  natural  when  we  remember  that  their  employers  are 
men  not  accustomed  to  deal  with  large  sums,  or  make  gifts, 
or  provide  for  others ;  are  responsible  members  of  a  Board ; 
that  every  detail  is  scrutinised,  and  every  effort  made  to  find 
the  best  dividend.  There  is  a  well-known  case  of  a  very 
flourishing  concern  which  was  started  by  a  few  associated 
workmen  as  a  co-operative  society,  which  is  now  simply  a 
company  in  a  few  hands,  not  a  single  workman  owning  the 
smallest  share.  It  is  notorious  that  this  concern  deals  with 
its  people  (to  say  the  least)  not  a  whit  better  than  surround- 
ing capitalists.  Yet  this  is  nothing  but  a  co-operative  society 
which  has  been  wonderfully  successful.  What  would  in- 
dustry gain  if  keen-scented  companies  like  this  existed  in 
every  city  of  the  kingdom? 

Professor  Fawcett  (in  his  excellent  Manual)  thinks  that 
the  difficulty  should  be  met  by  the  societies  making  a  rule  of 


346  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

employing  none  but  shareholders.  This  is  plainly  imprac- 
ticable. If  workmen  who  left  the  mill  were  compelled  to 
sell  their  shares,  they  would  cease  to  form  or  to  give  the 
privileges  of  capital.  If  workmen  to  fill  their  places  were 
required,  it  would  be  impossible  to  insist  that  they  should 
purchase  shares.  It  would  narrow  the  labour  market  to  an 
impracticable  degree,  and  no  mill  could  work  on  such  terms. 
And  if  it  could,  what  an  anomaly  would  be  a  society  founded 
to  ameliorate  the  position  of  the  labourer  which  made  a  rule 
of  refusing  employment  to  any  but  those  who  had  a  sum  of 
ready  money  in  hand !  Besides,  how  about  the  women  and 
children  ?  The  majority  of  the  work-people  of  a  cotton-mill 
are  women  and  children  —  wives,  lads,  and  girls.  But  all 
these  ("doffers"  included)  could  hardly  have  shares,  or  at 
any  rate  could  not  exercise  any  freedom  in  them.  The 
young  folk  and  children  unfortunately  have  not,  as  a  rule, 
parents  in  the  mill,  and  often  have  no  parents  at  all.  This 
is  just  the  class  on  whom  capital  presses  most  hardly.  To 
them  co-operation  offers  nothing.  In  short,  the  idea  of  the 
workmen  permanently  owning  the  capital  is  illusory.  As  a 
partial  temporary  measure  in  a  petty  trade  like  an  oyster 
fishery  it  may  be  possible  for  the  workers  to  own  the  capital 
and  plant.  In  all  the  larger  and  complex  forms  of  industry 
it  is  impossible.  The  owners  of  valuable  property  will  not, 
cannot,  and  ought  not  to  continue  at  manual  labour  for  wages. 
Nothing  can  prevent  co-operative  manufactories  from  hasten- 
ing rapidly  to  become  simply  trading  companies.  And  the 
co-operative  system,  if  it  only  enables  a  number  of  men  to 
obtain  capital,  will  do  nothing  by  means  of  a  few  vague  pro- 
fessions to  touch  the  root  of  the  evil  —  the  reckless  and  selfish 
employment  of  capital.  It  will  be  a  system  which  has  its  uses 
and  its  abuses,  like  the  railway  system  or  the  banking  system, 
but  it  will  leave  the  moral  condition  of  society,  as  these  do, 
precisely  where  they  are. 


INDUSTRIAL   COOPERATION  347 

Hitherto  the  question  of  the  capacity  of  co-operative 
societies  for  success  has  been  kept  out  of  sight  intentionally. 
It  is  plain  that  the  "stores"  with  reasonably  good  manage- 
ment and  skill  are  certain  of  success,  often  of  wonderful 
success.  But,  as  has  been  shown,  the  success  of  men  club- 
bing together  to  buy  their  own  food  and  clothing  is  nothing 
at  all.  We  can  go  much  further.  We  may  say  that  in  many 
trades  a  body  of  workmen  can  conduct  a  business  with  entire 
commercial  success.  Where  it  is  a  case  of  exceptional 
profits,  as  in  the  cotton  trade  from  1858-1861 ;  of  very  small 
capital  or  plant,  as  a  body  of  painters,  shoemakers,  masons, 
etc.  (such  men  are  really  artificers),  where  very  much  depends 
on  the  personal  skill,  care,  and  zeal  of  each  individual  work- 
man, no  doubt  signal  success  is  quite  within  their  reach. 
Associations  of  the  kind,  well  founded  and  honestly  con- 
ducted, are  worthy  of  every  help  and  confidence.  By  all 
means  let  there  be  plenty  such.  But  all  this  is  a  drop  in  the 
ocean  of  industry.  If  there  is  one  thing  which  the  progress 
of  civilisation  more  continually  develops,  it  is  that  the  direc- 
tion of  capital  requires  entire  freedom,  undivided  devotion, 
a  life  of  training,  and  innate  business  instincts. 

All  our  complex  forms  of  industry  involve  sometimes,  in 
the  directors,  engineering  or  practical  genius,  a  sort  of  in- 
stinct of  the  market,  and  a  life-long  familiarity  with  an  in- 
volved mass  of  considerations,  partly  mechanical,  partly 
monetary,  partly  administrative.  The  head  of  a  great  pro- 
duction is  like  the  captain  of  a  ship  or  the  general  of  an  army. 
He  must  have  scientific  knowledge,  technical  knowledge, 
practical  knowledge,  presence  of  mind,  dash,  courage,  zeal, 
and  the  habit  of  command.  It  is  all  very  well  for  working- 
men  to  buy  butter  and  tea  prudently,  and  even  to  superin- 
tend the  agents  who  buy  it  for  them.  But  it  is  ridiculous  to 
tell  the  hammermen  at  a  forge  that  they  can  successfully 


348  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

carry  on  Whitworth's  engineering  business,  or  build  the 
Great  Eastern.  Conceive  the  London  and  North-Western 
Railway  managed  by  its  stokers,  porters,  and  ticket-clerks, 
or  the  Peninsular  and  Oriental  Steamboat  Company  carried 
on  by  a  committee  of  seamen,  or  the  Bank  of  England  man- 
aged by  its  ordinary  cashiers !  These  are  extreme  cases,  but 
they  strikingly  explain  the  real  defect  of  the  position.  What 
is  the  limit?  Where  does  the  business  become  so  simple 
that  it  can  be  managed  by  the  mere  workmen  whom  it  em- 
ploys? Arguments  on  this  subject  are  almost  ridiculous, 
were  it  not  that  the  extravagant  pretensions  of  some  co-op- 
erators seem  to  call  for  notice.  In  a  word,  no  sensible 
man  will  deny  that  the  great  industrial  occupations  would 
come  to  disastrous  ruin  were  it  not  for  entire  secrecy,  rapidity, 
and  concentration  of  action,  and  that  practical  instinct  of 
trade  which  nothing  but  a  whole  life  and  a  very  difficult  edu- 
cation can  give  —  and  even  that  can  give  only  to  a  few. 

It  profits  little  to  argue  that  the  bulk  of  the  workmen, 
though  unfit  to  manage,  are  very  fit  to  superintend  the  man- 
agement. He  who  is  unfit  to  manage  is  not  fit  to  direct  the 
manager.  The  only  course  open  to  inexperienced  men  un- 
dertaking a  complex  manufacture  would  be  to  trust  them- 
selves blindly  to  a  skilful  director.  But  if  they  do,  they  are 
simply  in  his  hands,  and  the  independence  and  value  of  their 
owning  the  capital  is  at  an  end.  It  cannot  be  turned  both 
ways.  Either  the  manager  is  controlled  by  the  shareholder, 
in  which  case  success  is  endangered,  or  he  is  free,  and  then 
they  lose  responsibility  and  practical  power  to  affect  the 
management.  You  cannot  buy  the  inspiring  authority  any 
more  than  the  electric  will  of  a  great  military  or  political  chief. 
It  is  impossible  to  hire  commercial  genius  and  the  instincts 
of  a  skilful  trader.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  the  suc- 
cess of  great  trading  companies  proves  nothing.     They  are 


INDUSTRIAL   CO-OPERATION 


349 


companies  of  capitalists,  the  large  majority  of  whom  are  by 
the  habits  of  their  lives  trained  to  the  skilful  employment  of 
capital,  and  versed  from  childhood  in  the  ways  of  trade. 
And  even  these  men  practically  entrust  the  whole  manage- 
ment blindly  to  a  few  great  capitalists  among  them,  any  one 
of  whom  might  very  well  own  and  direct  the  whole  concern. 
The  fact  that  an  association  of  capitalists  can  manage  a 
gigantic  interest  does  nothing  to  prove  that  an  association 
of  workmen  can.  A  company  of  merchants,  naval  men,  and 
financiers,  whose  whole  lives  have  trained  them  to  it,  can 
manage  the  Peninsular  and  Oriental  undertaking.  Does 
that  prove  that  a  company  of  able  seamen  could? 

But  this  is  to  repeat  for  the  hundredth  time  the  objections 
against  Socialism  and  Communism.  There  is  no  need  now, 
or  in  this  country,  to  expose  the  unsoundness  of  these.  But 
co-operation,  whilst  sharing  in  many  of  their  defects,  wholly 
forgets  the  high  aims  which  make  these  systems  noble  in  their 
errors.  The  great-hearted  and  misjudged  enthusiasts  who 
taught  them,  really  grasped  the  industrial  evils  in  their  ful- 
ness, and  resolutely  met  them  with  a  cure.  They  saw  that 
the  root  of  the  evil  was  the  extreme  power  and  selfishness  of 
capital.  They  met  it  by  destroying  the  institution  of  indi- 
vidual property,  or  by  subjecting  it  to  new  conditions  and 
imposing  on  it  new  duties.  In  Communism,  where  Labour 
and  capital  were  alike  devoted  to  the  common  benefit;  in 
Socialism,  where  labour  and  capital  are  radically  reorgan- 
ised, whatever  else  of  evil  they  might  contain,  the  relative 
condition  of  the  labourer  must  certainly  have  improved. 
But  co-operation  is  a  compromise  which  reduces  none  of  the 
rights  of  property  and  imposes  on  it  no  new  obligation. 
Starting  from  the  same  point  as  Socialism  —  the  anti-social 
use  of  capital,  and  the  prostration  of  the  labourer  before  it  — 
it  seeks  to  remedy  all  its  consequences  by  making  more 


350  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

capitalists.  It  faces  all  the  risks  which  beset  the  subdivision 
of  capital  amongst  a  mass  of  inexperienced  holders,  and  then 
does  nothing  to  guarantee  more  justice  in  the  employment  of 
that  capital  in  the  aggregate. 

The  subdivision  of  the  capital,  after  all,  is  a  mere  mechani- 
cal expedient.  It  must  be  temporary.  The  aggregation  of 
capital,  the  accumulation  of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  the  more 
skilful,  is  one  of  the  most  elemental  tendencies  of  society. 
The  prudent  will  grow  rich,  the  rich  will  grow  more  rich.  It 
is,  in  truth,  one  of  the  primary  truths  about  human  labour. 
Communism  boldly  says  —  Let  none  grow  rich.  Co-operation 
simply  says  —  Let  more  grow  rich.  After  all,  how  very  small  is 
the  number  whom  it  can  permanently  make  capitalists.  All 
cannot  grow  rich.  It  is  puerile  to  suppose  that  all  can  ha^•e 
the  advantages  of  capital ;  for  if  all  had  them,  the  advantages 
would  cease.  Or  at  least,  since  they  would  all  share  capital 
most  unequally,  their  relative  position  is  not  much  altered. 
The  weak  now  go  to  the  wall,  and  so  they  would  if  the  strong 
had  the  means  of  getting  stronger.  It  is  easy  and  most 
desirable  that  every  family  in  an  industrial  town  should  club 
to  buy  food,  and  have  £20  at  interest  in  the  "store."  But 
if  the  entire  industry  of  the  country  were  started  on  the 
co-operative  system,  in  a  generation  the  shareholders  would 
be  a  small  minority,  and  certain  knots  of  them  would  doubt- 
less develop  the  most  formidable  industrial  tyranny  which 
modern  Europe  has  seen. 

Hereafter,  we  are  always  told,  co-operation  will  develop 
the  true  plan  of  admitting  labour  to  a  share  of  the  profits. 
It  may  be ;  but  no  one  of  the  elaborate  systems  of  Socialism 
has  stood  critical  examination.  The  attempt  to  apportion 
exactly  that  share  which  is  the  right  of  labour,  and  that  which 
is  the  right  of  capital,  has  always  ended  in  absurdity.^    To 

'  See  interminable  discussions  in  the  Co-operator  on  this  hopeless  problem. 


INDUSTRIAL   CO-OPERATION 


351 


apply  mathematical  formulae  to  social  and  political  questions 
is  the  surest  test  of  a  low  education.  What  arithmetical  ratio 
ought  property  and  numbers  to  hold  in  government  ?  What 
is  the  value  of  this  man's  or  that  class's  vote  ?  Such  are  the 
crudest  of  metaphysical  puzzles,  and  the  arithmetically  just 
share  of  labour  in  the  profits  is  one  of  them.  Clearly  the 
share,  whatever  it  should  be,  varies  in  every  trade ;  it  varies 
in  every  operation,  it  varies  to  each  workman.  It  is  a  com- 
mon idea  that  equity  would  consist  in  sharing  equally  between 
labour  and  capital,  every  ;;^io  of  capital  receiving  the  same 
dividend  as  every  £10  of  wages.  But  why  equally?  The 
ancient  philosopher  says  "the  vulgar  think  that  that  which 
is  equal  is  just."  But  it  requhes  a  disquisition  on  the  ele- 
ments of  society  (which  are  very  differently  estimated)  to 
show  why  in  abstract  justice  the  ;i£io  of  labour  expended  in 
making  a  piece  of  cotton  is  the  fah  equivalent  of  the  ;!^io  of 
capital  which  bought  the  material  and  machinery.  All  that 
can  be  said  is,  that  it  is  the  market  price  —  the  conventional 
measure.  But  this  is  the  measure  of  that  very  industrial 
system  which  is  declared  to  be  so  radically  unjust. 

Minds  that  do  not  delight  in  these  metaphysical  will-o'- 
the-wisps  will,  on  reflection,  see  that  there  is  no  more  ground 
to  say  that  the  just  share  of  labour  is  half  than  that  it  is 
double,  or  a  third,  or  a  tenth.  What  is  the  just  share  of  a 
successful  general  in  the  plunder?  What  is  the  just  share 
of  the  painter  of  a  picture,  and  the  man  who  wove  the  can- 
vas and  ground  the  colours?  Generals  win  battles  in  spite 
of  bad  soldiers,  and  soldiers  win  battles  in  spite  of  bad  gen- 
erals :  what  is  the  share  of  each  in  the  result  ?  A  capitalist 
of  consummate  skill  makes  a  business  thrive  in  spite  of  every 
opposition;  a  reckless  capitalist  ruins  the  most  promising 
business.  And  if  labour  and  capital  share  equally,  what 
becomes  of  talent,  so  justly  considered  in  Fourierism?    Who 


352  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

is  to  estimate  the  share  which  mechanical  genius,  instinctive 
sagacity,  and  personal  ascendancy  ought  to  secure  for  a 
masterly  trader?  All  sorts  of  ingenious  rules  have  been 
suggested  to  determine  this  just  share  mathematically,  and 
each  is  a  fresh  absurdity.  The  whole  subject  is  a  quicksand 
which  defies  measurement.  The  proportion  depends  en- 
tirely on  the  point  of  view  which  is  taken  as  most  important 
in  civilisation.  One  who  values  intellectual  power  will  think 
justice  gives  the  larger  share  to  the  controlling  mind.  One 
who  is  impressed  with  the  importance  of  capital  will  award 
it  to  property.  And  he  who  sympathises  with  the  sufferings 
and  privations  of  manual  toil  will  give  it  to  labour.  But  it 
is  of  less  importance  to  consider  what  proportion  of  profit 
co-operation  will  give  to  labour,  because  at  present  in  Eng- 
land it  does  not  give  any. 

But  if  we  suppose  the  just  relative  shares  of  labour  and 
capital  fixed  by  some  sort  of  inspiration,  they  would  not  long 
remain  just.  The  proportion  must  be  fixed  by  some  con- 
sideration of  the  difficulty  which  there  is  in  finding  one  or 
other  element.  In  a  given  undertaking,  the  relative  impor- 
tance of  the  capital  and  the  labour  might  be  mathematically 
taken  as  equal,  and  the  proportionate  value  ascertained. 
But  suppose  the  available  labourers  doubled  in  number,  or 
the  available  capital  halved.  Some  regard  ought  to  be  taken 
of  the  new  importance  of  capital,  when  so  many  more  needed 
it,  or  there  was  only  half  as  much  of  it.  But  this  is  only  to 
fall  back  on  the  old  rule  of  competition,  of  supply  and  de- 
mand. ;;^io  worth  of  labour  is  only  equal  to  ;^io  worth  of 
capital,  at  the  present  market  rate ;  if  wages  improved,  £io 
worth  of  labour  would  become  ;i^i5  worth  of  labour,  and  so 
on.  ;^io  worth  of  agricultural  labour,  in  Dorsetshire,  means 
twenty  weeks  of  good  farm-work;  in  Yorkshire,  it  means  ten 
weeks;  in  New  Zealand,  it  means  five  weeks;  in  Saxony,  it 


INDUSTRIAL  CO-OPERATION  353 

means  fifty  weeks.  Which  of  these  is  just  ?  But  ;^io  repre- 
sents nearly  as  many  ploughs  and  spades,  loaves  and  coats  — 
though  not  quite  —  in  all.  The  labourer's  wages  usually 
fall  when  he  is  m  distress;  his  £io  worth  of  labour  may 
become  £5,  without  any  fault  of  his  own,  and  though  he  work 
still  harder.  But  the  ;^io  in  capital  never  fluctuates  so  quickly 
or  so  greatly.  That  is  to  say,  the  share  which  the  system  of 
justice  gives  to  the  labourer  will  be  least  precisely  when  and 
where  he  most  needs  it.  Surely  this  is  competition  systema- 
tised  under  the  mask  of  equity ! 

Or,  suppose  no  regard  is  paid  to  the  difficulty  of  obtaining 
capital  or  labour  —  which,  after  all,  is  competition,  supply, 
and  demand  —  and  it  were  attempted  to  apportion,  by 
abstract  justice,  the  share  of  labour  and  capital  —  how 
should  we  proceed  ?  Capital  results  from  saving  —  that  is, 
abstinence.  How  much  abstinence  is  equivalent  to  how 
much  labour  ?  And  then,  what  sort  of  abstinence  and  what 
sort  of  labour?  Under  what  conditions,  over  what  period, 
and  so  forth?  The  abstinence  of  a  nobleman  who  saves 
;^io,ooo  a  year  out  of  £20,000  is  not  heroic  vktue ;  but  it  is 
a  great  power,  and  represents  the  labour  of  300  men  for  a 
year.  The  whole  thing  is  a  pedant's  puzzle.  We  attempt 
to  measure  in  figures  the  relative  values  of  labour  and  capital, 
and  we  come  at  once  to  the  old  conventional  measure  —  the 
market  standard.  We  adopt  it,  and  we  incorporate  with  our 
system  of  justice  all  the  injustice  of  competition,  and  we 
stereotype  all  its  evils.  The  noble  enthusiasts  who  taught 
Socialism  at  least  saw  this,  and  they  determined  to  meet  it 
by  reorganising  society,  and  imposing  new  conditions  on 
property.  Each  fresh  difficulty  drove  them  to  fresh  safe- 
guards and  more  ingenious  regulations.  The  world  now 
knows  the  utter  failure  of  these  visions  of  a  society  drilled 
like  a  regiment  and  tutored  like  a  school.     But  with  all  their 

2A 


354  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

errors  and  their  follies,  they  never  thought  that  the  just  claims 
of  labour  could  be  settled  "by  algebra."  They  saw  that 
there  are  but  two  ways  in  which  labour  and  capital  — 
or  say,  rather,  the  human  faculties  and  efforts  —  can  receive 
their  proportionate  shares:  by  competition,  or  by  a  radical 
revision  of  the  mechanism  of  the  whole  social  system. 

There  is  one  other  consideration  (and  it  is  of  the  utmost 
importance)  which  co-operators  usually  overlook.  In  a 
plain,  thriving  business  —  as  in  the  cotton  trade  before  the 
American  war,  when  profits  were  certain  and  large  —  it 
seems  a  very  simple  thing  to  divide  the  profit  equitably.  But 
what  if  there  is  no  profit,  or  a  dead  loss?  Under  the  rule  of 
abstract  justice,  it  does  not  seem  quite  clear  why,  if  a  business 
is  working  at  a  dead  loss,  the  very  wages  should  be  paid. 
Yet,  to  give  capital  its  due,  however  great  its  losses,  it  pays 
the  market  rate  of  wages  to  all  whom  it  employs.  Now,  in 
striking  the  just  balance,  something  ought  to  be  allowed  to 
capital  for  this  liability,  since  it  has  to  bear  all  the  loss.  And 
yet,  how  is  the  risk,  the  chance  of  dead  loss,  to  be  estimated? 
If  any  arrangement  is  devised  which  is  to  throw  the  loss  on 
labour,  then  labour  ought  to  have  a  voice  in  the  manage- 
ment; and  we  should  have  co-operative  mills  managed  not 
only  by  committees  and  meetings  of  shareholders,  but  joint 
committees  and  meetings  of  the  shareholders,  and  their 
workmen  and  workwomen.  But  co-operators  are  not  pre- 
pared for  this,  for  this  is  Socialism,  and  a  distinct  invasion 
of  the  rights  of  capital. 

Working-men,  perhaps,  are  a  little  disposed  to  undervalue 
the  constant  and  enormous  losses  which  capital  has  to  bear. 
How  many  a  business,  ultimately  thriving,  has  run  at  a  dead 
loss  for  years  —  a  loss  which,  if  thrown  on  the  workmen, 
would  have  brought  them  to  destitution.  Now,  capital  can 
stand  these  great  fluctuations  just  because  it  is  capital  — 


INDUSTRIAL  CO-OPERATION  355 

i.e.  a  reserve ;  but  the  fluctuations  of  the  labourer's  income, 
just  because  he  has  only  a  reserve  in  rare  cases,  unsettle  and 
derange  his  daily  comfort  and  his  domestic  life.  These 
losses,  when  averted,  are  often  averted  by  the  personal 
sagacity  and  energy  of  the  capitalist,  which  it  is  impossible 
to  estimate  in  figures.  The  whole  life  and  soul  of  a  difficult 
business  (as  of  a  difficult  campaign)  often  depends  entirely 
on  the  skill  of  the  chief ;  and  he  would  be  crippled  if  he  were 
a  subordinate  manager.  There  is  a  great  deal  more  resem- 
blance than  is  often  supposed  between  a  military  association 
and  an  industrial  one.  The  successful  direction  of  combined 
human  effort  requires  very  similar  conditions,  whether  the 
activity  takes  the  form  of  killing  an  enemy  or  of  making 
steam-engines.  It  is  as  illusory  to  apportion  the  just  share 
of  the  capitalist  to  the  profits,  or  to  subject  his  action  to  his 
subordinates,  as  it  would  be  to  put  an  army  into  commission, 
and  direct  it  by  a  Board  and  an  assembly  of  common  soldiers. 
Nor  is  the  industrial  question  simply  one  of  money.  La- 
bour would  not  be  helped  simply  by  awarding  it  a  new  share 
of  the  profits ;  many  labourers  would  use  it  just  as  improvi- 
dently  and  unluckily  as  they  do  their  present  share.  The 
main  and  the  just  complaint  of  labour  is,  not  that  it  has  too 
small  a  share  of  the  profit,  but  that  it  is  too  often  exposed 
to  the  exorbitant  power  of  capital,  and  the  oppressive  use  of 
that  power.  All  know  that  there  are  very  many  ways  in 
which  the  capitalist  can  hold  the  labourer  gripped  in  a  crush- 
ing system,  whilst  remunerating  him  largely.  Some  of  the 
best  paid  occupations  —  that  of  colliers,  coal-whippers,  tai- 
lors, and  excavators  — receive  very  high  wages,  although  often 
suffering  the  most  systematic  oppression.  Wages  are  fre- 
quently enormous  where  "truck"  is  a  dominant  institution: 
the  money  question  is  often  the  least  part  of  it.  Nor  would 
any  system  which  simply  added  to  wages,  and  left  capital 


356  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

with  all  its  power,  do  much  to  establish  equity.  Justice  is 
not  done  to  the  unprotected  labourer  simply  by  giving  him 
more  money,  if  every  power  and  right  which  capital  pos- 
sesses to  oppress  him  is  left  untouched.  The  evils  which  fall 
hardest  on  labour  are  —  irregular  work ;  overtime ;  exhaust- 
ing, unhealthy,  and  dangerous  work;  fluctuations  in  earn- 
ings, place  and  hours  of  work ;  forfeits ;  personal,  domestic, 
and  private  oppression;  want  of  leisure,  justice,  and  pro- 
tection. All  these,  which  unionism  provides  for,  co-opera- 
tion leaves  untouched ;  and  as  to  overwork,  rather  stimulates 
than  reduces  it.  Co-operation  concerns  itself  solely  with  the 
re-distribution  of  capital  and  its  produce.  For  the  employ- 
ment and  the  duties  of  capital  it  has  not  a  word. 

Capital  has  its  beneficent  as  well  as  its  sinister  side.  It  is 
a  power  for  good  far  more  than  for  evil ;  and  if  co-operation 
too  often  forgets  the  formidable  power  of  aggregate  capital, 
whether  owned  by  many  or  by  one,  by  rich  or  poor,  it  too 
often  puts  out  of  sight  the  noble  functions  which  capital  in  a 
single  hand  can  exert.  As  the  possession  of  vast  and  free 
capital  in  a  single  skilful  hand  enables  it  to  be  used  with  a 
concentration,  rapidity,  and  elasticity  which  no  corporate 
capital  can  enjoy ;  so  in  a  conscientious  hand  it  is  capable  of 
yet  more  splendid  acts  of  protection,  providence,  and  benefi- 
cence. There  is  nothing  chimerical  in  such  a  supposition, 
and  nothing  degrading  to  those  who  benefit  by  it.  It  does 
not  consist  in  the  giving  of  money  or  the  distribution  of 
patronage.  A  great,  free,  and  wise  capitalist  — and  Eng- 
land happily  can  show  some  of  the  noblest  examples  —  whose 
mind  is  devoted  to  the  worthy  employment  of  his  power,  can 
in  countless  ways,  by  advice,  help,  example,  and  experience, 
promote  the  welfare  of  those  about  him,  raise  their  material 
comfort,  theur  domestic  happiness,  their  education,  their 
health,  their  whole  physical  and  moral  condition;   can  act 


INDUSTRIAL  CO-OPERATION  357 

almost  as  a  providence  on  earth,  and  that  by  means  as  hon- 
ourable for  them  to  receive  as  for  him  to  use. 

Every  one  knows  that  some  of  the  largest  estates,  and  some 
very  large  manufactories  in  this  country,  are  now  successfully 
carried  on  in  a  spurit  which  provides  in  a  very  high  degree  for 
the  welfare  of  all  concerned.  The  feeling  of  honest  pride, 
confidence,  and  goodwill  with  which  these  efforts  are  met  on 
the  part  of  tenants  and  workmen,  is  as  elevating  to  them  as 
it  is  to  their  employers.  It  would  be  a  perversion  of  mind 
which  could  see  anything  mean  in  so  noble  a  relation  as  this. 
It  would  be  preposterous  to  suppose  that  the  sense  of  duty 
could  be  as  lively  and  personal  on  one  side  or  the  other, 
where  the  capital  is  owned  by  a  company.  No  responsible 
manager  of  a  society  could  feel  or  venture  to  show  the  same 
munificent  care  for  his  people  that  many  landlords  and  many 
manufacturers  now  do.  No  association  could  or  would  be 
ever  voting  sums  for  those  benevolent  purposes  which  the 
conscientious  capitalist  carries  out  day  by  day.  As  little 
could  it  do  so  as  the  Board  of  Admiralty  could  inspire  the 
sense  of  sympathy  and  devotion  which  binds  a  captain  like 
Nelson  to  his  men.  This  is  a  conviction  almost  as  old  as 
society  itself,  which  it  needs  more  now  than  some  phrases 
about  "Self-Help"  and  "Mutual  Co-operation"  to  eradicate. 

Socialism,  it  is  true,  and  still  more  Communism,  did  claim 
to  substitute  for  this  spirit  another  as  strong,  or  even  stronger. 
But  that  was  by  boldly  reconstructing  the  social  system,  by 
instilling  new  habits,  and  instituting  a  moral  education.  But 
the  bastard  Communism  —  of  breaking  capital  into  bits  — 
which  some  advocate  as  true  co-operation,  leaves  the  whole 
force  of  these  sentiments  out  of  sight.  It  weakens  the  power 
of  capital  for  good  far  more  than  it  weakens  its  power  for  evil. 
The  morality  and  education  of  capital  it  passes  by.  It  sub- 
divides it,  but  does  nothing  to  elevate  it.    Right,  useful, 


358  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

necessary  often,  as  the  principle  of  association  and  co-opera- 
tion is,  indispensable  as  it  may  be  as  an  adjunct  and  resting 
point,  it  will  still  remain  as  true  as  ever,  that  on  any  large 
scale,  and  for  the  highest  uses,  concentrated  and  not  asso- 
ciated capital  will  command  the  greatest  practical  success, 
and  develop  the  most  noble  moral  features  both  in  employer 
and  employed.^ 

It  may  be  asked,  is  there  any  need  so  closely  to  criticise  a 
spontaneous  economic  movement  which  has  an  obvious  prac- 
tical value  ?  Is  it  necessary  again  to  repeat  objections  against 
socialism  as  a  system  ?  The  answer  is  that  there  is  real  need 
for  it.  The  co-operative  system  is  so  great  a  success  that 
any  illusions  about  it  would  be  very  dangerous.  It  is  now 
absorbing  men  of  such  high  qualities  and  influence,  that  if 
not  well  directed  it  will  prove  positively  pernicious;  and 
especially  so,  since  it  is  being  advocated  with  such  exclusive 
claims  and  such  extravagant  language  as  befits  only  a  new 
social  system.  The  present  writer  yields  to  none  in  his 
warm  sympathy  and  respect  for  the  movement  as  regards 
the  "stores"  and  associated  artificers.  He  knows  and  has 
seen  how  very  much  good  it  is  doing.  But  that  good  is 
wholly  dependent  on  its  true  limit  and  use  being  understood, 
and  he  has  long  seen  with  regret  that  some  of  the  very  best 
leaders  and  friends  of  the  working  classes  are  throwing  them- 

*  It  will  be  seen  that  no  notice  is  here  taken  of  the  system  originating 
in  Paris,  advocated  by  Mr.  Mill,  and  adopted  by  Messrs.  Briggs  and  Messrs. 
Crossley,  in  which  a  portion  of  the  profits  is  freely  given  by  the  capitalist 
to  the  labourer,  or  a  share  in  the  capital  is  made  over  to  him.  This,  the 
most  hopeful  fact  in  our  industrial  system,  the  best  of  all  schemes  of  indus- 
trial improvement,  is  not  co-operation  at  all.  It  wants  every  feature  of 
co-operation.  It  is  not  self-help  by  the  people,  for  it  is  a  wise  and  spon- 
taneous act  of  munificence  from  the  capitalist.  No  efforts  of  the  labourers 
can  advance  its  introduction.  The  capital  is  not  subdivided,  but  remains 
practically  in  one  hand.  The  management  is  not  democratic,  but  remains 
also  in  one  hand.  The  labourers  are  not  partners  and  have  no  control 
for  good  or  evil  over  the  concern.  It  is  the  free  gift  of  a  bonus  to  the  labourer 
—  a  wise,  a  just,  and  a  promising  system  —  but  not  co-operation  (1865). 


INDUSTRIAL   CO-OPERATION  359 

selves  exclusively  into  it,  as  if  it  were  a  new  gospel,  destined 
to  revolutionise  the  conditions  of  industry.  As  applying  on 
any  large  scale  to  manufacturers,  it  seems  to  the  writer  a 
feeble  echo  of  Socialism,  with  many  of  its  defects  and  few  of 
its  ennobling  aims.  On  this  side  it  is  a  crude  compromise 
between  the  claims  of  labour  and  of  capital  —  the  hybrid 
child  of  Plutonomy  and  Communism. 

Things  which  are  very  good  and  useful  when  quite  spon- 
taneous, become  very  bad  and  noxious  when  fanned  into  a 
movement  and  preached  as  a  revelation.  The  Temperance 
principle  has  done  good  serxdce ;  but  as  a  teetotalist  fanati- 
cism it  does  positive  harm.  It  is  a  most  useful  thing  and  a 
most  hopeful  fact,  that  many  working-men's  families  should 
have  a  small  saving  for  a  rainy  day.  But  there  is  no  need 
for  special  exultation  that  a  great  many  working-men  become 
shopkeepers  or  small  employers.  And  a  true  friend  of  labour 
may  well  listen  with  dismay  and  disgust  to  the  appeals  of  an 
organised  propaganda  "to  save  society  by  making  money." 
There  exists  unluckily  a  systematic  agitation  which  has 
developed  a  special  cant  of  its  own,  by  which  the  working- 
men  are  beset,  the  burden  of  the  cry  being.  Save  —  econo- 
mise —  accumulate  — grow  rich.  "I  do  beseech  you,"  cries 
a  co-operative  lecturer,  "to  unite  yourselves  together,  with 
the  determination  to  benefit  yourselves  by  laying  out  your 
money  to  the  best  advantage."  This  is  but  the  spirit  of  a 
thousand  addresses,  tracts,  and  articles.  There  has  grown 
up  an  entire  class  of  professional  agitators,  from  whom 
nothing  solid  or  practical  is  ever  heard  but  exhortations  to 
make  money,  and  hints  how  to  make  money  quickly.  It  is 
a  good  thing  to  grow  rich  —  honestly  and  naturally.  But  to 
preach,  implore,  and  excite  men  to  grow  rich  is  a  very  bad 
thing. 

It  used  to  be  said  by  them  of  old  time  that  the  love  of 


360  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

money  was  the  root  of  all  evil.  Foolish  as  this  was,  it  is 
hardly  true  that  money  is  the  root  of  all  good.  I  do  not 
scruple  to  say  that  this  is  too  often  the  tone  of  the  professional 
propagandist,  and  that  much  of  his  teaching  is  morally 
debasing.  There  is  not  one  moral  standard  for  the  rich  and 
another  for  the  poor.  And  to  teach  and  preach  to  the  poor 
the  paramount  duty  of  getting  money  is  as  demoralising  as 
to  preach  it  to  the  rich.  A  little  money,  if  they  come  by  it 
in  natural  course,  may  be  useful  and  essential  to  their  well- 
being;  but  for  them  to  be  always  thinking  of  making  a  little, 
and  then  of  making  that  little  more ;  ever  to  be  dealing  in 
shares,  dividend,  or  interest ;  to  believe  that  by  so  doing  they 
are  working  out  their  own  ''elevation"  and  their  orders'  re- 
generation, would  be  a  pitiable  self-delusion.  For  this 
reason  there  is  no  modern  movement  more  full  of  moral 
danger  than  this.  The  temperance,  the  educational,  the 
club  movement,  all  have  and  advocate  a  definite  moral  ob- 
ject. The  co-operative  easily  degenerates  into  the  basest 
material  end.  Material  efforts  are  no  less  necessary  than 
moral  efforts,  —  for  the  moment  are  often  more  so ;  but  only 
in  so  far  as  men  recognise  and  remember  their  temporary 
and  subordinate  uses. 

The  co-operative  advocate  will  insist  that  many  incidental 
objects,  many  moral  precepts,  are  invariably  united  with  the 
material  aim.  It  is  so,  and  the  movement  would  be  a  poor 
one  indeed  if  there  were  not  this  union.  But  co-operation 
must  stand  or  fall  by  that  which  is  its  direct  principal  pur- 
pose. A  material  aim  is  a  good,  provided  it  keeps  its  place. 
And  the  direct,  main,  and  only  accomplished  object  of  co-op- 
eration, as  a  system,  is  to  make  money.  This  is  but  slightly 
modified  by  the  incidental  aims;  and  its  character  is  not 
changed  by  vague  appeals  to  good  feeling,  by  social  celebra- 
tions, by  devoting  i  per  cent  out  of  dividends  for  education, 


INDUSTRIAL   CO-OPERATION  361 

by  opening  a  reading-room,  and  by  subscribing  £5  to  the 
Co-operator.  None  of  these  rest  on  any  defined  principle, 
are  in  the  least  systematic  or  generally  accepted,  or  have  been 
ever  worked  up  into  practical  standing  rules.  They  are  just 
as  compatible  in  theory  with  a  railway  company  as  with  a 
"  store."  The  shareholders  of  any  business,  if  they  were  good- 
natured  people,  would  do  as  much  and  more.  What  co-op- 
eration does  teach  emphatically,  consistently,  perpetually, 
and  ably  is  how  to  make  a  thriving  business.  It  has  worked 
out  an  admirably  ingenious  and  prudent  system  of  rules  to 
increase  dividends  and  to  reduce  expenditure.  As  a  commer- 
cial system,  it  is  a  masterpiece  of  sagacious  contrivances, 
and  rests  in  principle  on  the  plainest  and  most  consistent  logic. 
By  this  alone  can  it  claim  to  be  a  system.  What  it  has  not 
yet  done  is  to  produce  in  twenty  years  one  plain  case  of  labour 
being  employed  on  juster  and  more  favourable  principles 
than  it  is,  or  indeed  on  any  principles  but  those  of  competi- 
tion ;  or  even  to  elaborate  or  suggest  any  rational  scheme  for 
employing  labour  on  new  conditions,  or  for  placing  the  use 
of  capital  on  a  sounder  and  higher  moral  basis.^ 

*  A  curious  proof  how  little  co-operation  provides  or  suggests  on  the  grand 
industrial  question  of  making  the  use  of  capital  consistent  with  social  obli- 
gations, may  be  found  in  the  following  catechism,  printed  in  the  Co-operator, 
as  part  of  a  lecture,  by  its  indefatigable  editor,  Mr.  Pitman,  the  most  active 
and  most  eminent  of  the  co-operative  apostles:  — 

CO-OPERATIVE  CATECHISM. 

"What  is  your  Name? 

"  Co-operation. 

"Who  gave  you  this  Name? 

"My  godfathers  and  godmothers,  the  Rochdale  Pioneers,  by  whom  I 
was  made  prudent,  provident,  and  persevering. 

"  What  did  your  godfathers  and  godmothers  do  for  you  ?  _ 

"They  did  promise  and  vow  three  things  in  my  name:  First,  that  I  should 
renounce  'the  public,'  and  all  its  ways,  the  pomps  and  vanities  of  this  wicked 
world,  and  all  the  sinful  lusts  of  the  flesh.  Secondly,  that  I  should  believe 
my  own  principles.  And,  Thirdly,  that  I  should  act  as  if  I  did,  by  keeping 
down  expenses,  buying  in  the  cheapest  market,  and  giving  no  credit  without 
ample  security. 


362  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

If  this  is  true,  working-men  will  not  long  trust  implicitly  in 
a  system  which  however  useful  is  very  partial  and  essentially 
subordinate.  They,  of  all  others,  know  the  social  conse- 
quences of  a  systematic  spirit  of  money-making.  Co- 
operators  are  fond  of  homely  proverbs,  and  they  may  well 
reflect  on  the  value  of  a  specific  which  consists  "of  a  hair 
from  the  dog  that  bit  them."  They  are  also  fond  of  an 
apologue,  and  may  think  of  one  of  the  most  ancient  and  the 
wisest  of  all  apologues  —  the  immortal  fable  of  the  "Belly 
and  the  members."  Would  it  be  a  rational  remedy  for  dis- 
order of  the  digestive  system  if  the  members  were,  not  to 
starve,  but  to  parcel  out  the  stomach  in  bits  amongst  them  ? 
All  the  social  misery  which  is  caused  to  the  workmen  by  the 
rage  of  amassing  capital  is  not  likely  to  be  extinguished  by  a 
few  hundred  thousand  workmen  becoming  small  capitalists. 
There  is  nothing  in  co-operation  per  se  which  is  to  prevent  a 
thriving  co-operative  company  from  consisting  of  the  most 
selfish  and  unscrupulous  men  on  earth.  Capitalists  by  the 
very  conditions  of  human  nature  will  not  be  day-labourers. 

"Dost  thou  not  think  that  thou  art  bound  to  believe  and  do  as  the  Rochdale 
Pioneers  have  promised  for  thee  7 

"Yes,  verily:  and  by  the  reciprocal  help  of  the  shareholders  and  other 
customers  I  will;  and  I  heartily  thank  my  northern  friends  that  they  have 
called  me  into  this  happy  condition,  through  the  instrumentality  of  their 
principles.  And  I  hope  to  illustrate  those  principles  by  continual  practice 
unto  my  life's  end. 

"Rehearse  the  articles  0/ thy  belief. 

"I  believe  that  honesty  is  the  best  policy;  that  'tis  a  very  good  vcorld  we 
live  in,  to  lend,  or  to  spend,  or  to  give  in;  but  to  beg,  or  to  borrow,  or  get 
a  man's  own,  'tis  the  very  worst  world  that  ever  was  known.  I  believe  in 
good  weight  and  measure,  in  unadulterated  articles,  in  cash  payments,  and 
in  small  profits  and  quick  returns.  I  also  believe  in  the  maxim  'live  and 
let  live';  in  free  trade;  and,  in  short,  that  my  duty  towards  my  neighbour 
is  to  love  him  as  myself,  and  to  do  to  all  men  as  I  would  they  should  do 
unto  me. 

"What  dost  thou  chiefly  learn  in  these  articles  of  thy  belief? 

"First,  I  learn  the  folly  of  being  a  slave,  when  I  may  be  free.  Secondly, 
I  learn  to  save  my  money,  as  well  as  earn  it.  And,  Thirdly,  I  learn  how 
best  to  spend  it." 

This  is  sensible  advice  with  a  few  copybook  saws  worthy  of  a  village 
schoolmaster;  but  it  is  not  a  system  of  social  justice,  or  a  system  of  anything 
(1865). 


INDUSTRIAL    CO-OPERATION  363 

And  the  fact  that  10  per  cent  of  the  working-men  should 
raise  themselves  out  of  their  class  by  ceasing  to  be  labourers 
is  an  evil  rather  than  a  good.  The  working-man  who  does 
so  is  generally  no  favourable  specimen  of  his  order.  The 
facilities  and  taste  for  this  species  of  rise  in  life,  this  displace- 
ment of  class,  form  a  very  real  evil.  They  are  generally 
bought  at  the  price  of  true  moral  and  mental  development. 
Regularity  and  security  of  position  are  the  conditions  most 
favourable  to  the  welfare  and  elevation  of  the  working-man, 
not  a  rage  for  speculation  and  visions  of  possible  wealth. 
Let  him  consider  the  following  words  of  Comte :  —  "Gov- 
ernments, whether  retrograde  or  constitutional,  have  done 
all  they  could  to  divert  the  people  from  their  true  social 
function  (participation  in  public  life)  by  affording  opportu- 
nities for  individuals  among  them  to  rise  to  higher  positions. 
The  moneyed  classes,  under  the  influence  of  blind  routine, 
have  lent  their  aid  to  this  degrading  policy  by  continually 
preaching  to  the  people  the  necessity  of  saving:  a  precept 
which  is  indeed  incumbent  on  their  own  class,  but  not  on 
others.  Without  saving,  capital  could  not  be  accumulated 
and  administered ;  it  is,  therefore,  of  the  highest  importance 
that  the  moneyed  classes  should  be  as  economical  as  possible. 
But  in  other  classes,  and  especially  in  those  dependent  on 
fixed  wages,  parsimonious  habits  are  uncalled  for  and  inju- 
rious ;  they  lower  the  character  of  the  labourer,  while  they  do 
little  or  nothing  to  improve  his  physical  condition ;  and  neither 
the  working  classes  nor  their  teachers  should  encourage  them. 
Both  the  one  and  the  other  will  find  their  truest  happiness  in 
keeping  clear  of  all  practical  responsibility,  and  in  allowing 
free  play  to  their  mental  and  moral  faculties  in  public  as  well 
as  private  life." 

What,   then,   are   our   practical   conclusions?     They   are 
these :  that  the  co-operative  system,  as  applied  to  the  retail 


364  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

of  food  and  clothing,  and  to  small  bodies  of  associated  work- 
men, is  a  most  sound,  strong,  and  valuable  method  of  adding 
to  the  material  well-being  of  the  working  classes.  As  such 
it  deserves  all  goodwill  and  confidence,  and  undoubtedly  has 
a  large  and  bright  future  of  usefulness  before  it.  But  co- 
operation, as  spreading  grand  social  truths,  or  as  applied  to 
large  capitals  and  complex  industries  —  in  a  word,  to  Pro- 
duction —  has  not  stood,  and  will  not  stand,  its  ground.  As 
a  social  system,  it  has  developed  nothing  that  is  not  at  once 
crude  and  vague ;  and  the  earnest  spirits  amongst  the  work- 
ing and  educated  classes  (often  of  some  shade  of  Socialism) 
who  support  it  on  this  ground,  should  reflect  that  it  has  done 
nothing  to  grapple  with  the  problems  that  socialism  pro- 
pounds; that  it  has  done  and  taught  nothing  definite,  except 
how  to  buy  well  and  how  to  save  money.  As  applied  to  the 
higher  manufactures  it  is  doubtless  capable,  in  special  cases, 
of  a  very  large  measure  of  success,  and  may  often  in  the  battle 
of  labour  prove  valuable,  as  a  temporary  rampart  and  refuge. 
It  will  probably  always  remain  side  by  side  with  individual 
capital,  as  a  vigorous  rival  and  check.  Success,  however, 
necessarily  alters  the  character  of  co-operative  manufactures, 
and  extinguishes  their  social  purpose  by  converting  the  work- 
men into  simple  shareholders. 

Co-operation  is  deeply  rooted,  and  may  now  prosper  by 
itself.  To  fan  it  into  factitious  activity  may  prove  a  danger- 
ous social  nuisance.  The  Gospel  according  to  Mammon  will 
preach  itself,  and  can  do  without  the  assistance  of  philosophers 
and  reformers.  The  working-men  and  their  advisers  who  are 
really  bent  on  social  progress,  well  know  that  this  comes  only 
of  a  truer  civilisation,  of  a  more  vigorous  morality,  of  a  wider 
education,  of  a  deeper  moral  tone,  of  healthier  domestic  life, 
more  temperance,  unity,  moderation,  self-respect  amongst 
employed,  more  sense  of  duty,  more  justice,  more  benevolence 


INDUSTRIAL  CO-OPERATION  365 

amongst  employers,  more  sympathy  and  unselfishness  amongst 
both.  Were  a  higher  education  of  mind  and  feeling  universal 
amongst  workmen,  they  could  elevate  their  own  condition 
indefinitely.  Were  it  universal  amongst  capitalists,  they 
would  do  so  spontaneously.  Moral  and  mental  education 
then,  and  a  systematic  promotion  of  it,  and  a  power  to  con- 
centrate and  direct  opinion,  is  the  one  thing  truly  needful  in 
this  and  in  all  other  social  wants.  This  is  the  true  "  self-help 
by  the  people,"  and  not  the  making  of  dividends,  and  com- 
pound interest  on  capital.  This  is  the  only  means  by  which 
the  working  classes  can  elevate  themselves,  and  it  is  a  fraud 
to  tell  them  that  co-operation  offers  them  this  in  any  serious 
or  regular  way.  Everything  that  puts  this  out  of  sight,  and 
blinds  men  to  its  paramount  importance,  is  an  evil.  It  is 
because  co-operation  seems  tending  to  do  so,  that  the  writer 
has  criticised  it  as  unreservedly  and  openly  as  he  has  previ- 
ously criticised  capital.  If  co-operation  were  ever  to  sup- 
plant, in  the  interest  and  hopes  of  working-men,  these  other 
and  far  higher  requirements,  it  would  become  a  real  source 
of  social  demoralisation.  In  itself  it  is  good,  provided  it  be 
natural,  and  provided  it  keep  its  place.  But  far  other  things 
are  needful  on  which  co-operation  can  offer  nothing  definite, 
or  only  as  a  make-weight.  These  things,  co-operators  may 
be  told,  they  ought  to  have  done,  and  not  to  have  left  the  other 
undone. 


IV 

SOCIAL  REMEDIES 

(1885) 

In  the  year  1884  Mr.  Robert  Miller  of  Edinburgh,  a  retired 
engineer,  proposed  to  hold  a  public  representative  enquiry 
into  the  causes  of  Industrial  Distress  and  possible  remedies. 
He  offered  £,1000  for  the  expenses  of  such  a  Conference 
in  London,  to  embrace  politicians,  capitalists,  statisticians, 
workmen,  and  delegates  from  many  Unions,  Co-operative 
and  Industrial  Societies,  Socialist  and  Reformers'  bodies. 
Together  with  many  Economists,  Unionists,  and  Labour 
Associations  we  organised  a  Conference  of  more  than  one 
hundred  delegates,  who  met  during  January  1885  in  the 
Prince's  Hall  under  the  Presidency  of  Sir  Charles  Dilke. 

The  question  proposed  was  as  follows :  — 

Would  the  more  general  distribution  of  Capital  or 
Land,  or  the  State  management  of  Capital  or  Land, 
promote  or  impair  the  production  of  wealth  and  the 
welfare  of  the  community  ? 

A  variety  of  papers  were  read  and  discussed  by  men 
representing  nearly  all  the  various  forms  of  Economic  and 
Socialist  schools,  by  men  as  widely  separated  in  opinion  as 
were  Mr.  Arthur  J.  Balfour  and  Mr.  John  Burns,  as 
were  Lord  Brassey  and  Professor  Francis  Newman  and 
Professor  Alfred  R.  Wallace. 

From  the  volume  entitled  The  Industrial  Remunera- 
tion Conference,  which  reported  all  the  papers  and  the 

366 


SOCIAL  REMEDIES  367 

discussions,  I  extract  my  own  address,  which  embodied  the 
views  on  the  Labour  problem  of  our  Positivist  School 
{1908). 

We  have  before  us  two  methods  proposed  for  the  reor- 
ganisation of  the  industrial  system :  —  the  first,  by  the  more 
general  distribution  of  Capital  and  of  Land ;  the  second,  by 
the  State  management  of  Capital  and  of  Land.  These  two 
plans  are  in  violent  contrast  with  each  other.  The  former 
is  merely  an  extension  of  the  present  social  system,  multiply- 
ing the  holders  of  private  property,  imposing  on  private 
property  no  new  checks  or  duties,  proposing  nothing  sub- 
versive of  our  ordinary  habits,  and  nothing  but  what  is 
common  in  many  countries  in  the  Old  and  New  World.  The 
second  plan  involves  an  entire  revolution  in  the  social  system ; 
it  would  abolish,  or  at  least  recast,  the  oldest  institution  of 
civilisation,  private  property;  and  it  proposes  an  industrial 
system  which  probably  has  never  at  any  time  been  at  work  on 
any  large  scale  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

But  before  we  can  properly  consider  any  large  scheme  for 
the  reorganisation  of  our  industrial  system,  we  must  first  be 
prepared  with  at  least  a  general  answer  to  the  wider  question : 
"Does  our  industrial  system  need  to  be  reorganised  at  all?" 
I  shall  simply  indicate  my  own  answer  to  this  question,  and 
shall  then  consider  the  two  alternative  proposals  for  reform ; 
giving  in  each  case  results,  conclusions,  and  general  esti- 
mates, the  outcome  of  my  own  experiences  and  studies.  I 
have  now  for  twenty-five  years  occupied  myself  with  these 
industrial  problems  in  their  various  phases,  in  personal  con- 
tact with  the  movements  and  their  leading  exponents  or  di- 
rectors: trades  unions,  workmen's  clubs,  benefit  societies, 
co-operation,  industrial  partnerships,  land  nationalisation, 
socialism,  communism.    Time  does  not  permit  me  to  enter 


368  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

into  details  or  systematic  review  of  arguments.  I  shall  seek 
only  to  lay  before  the  Conference  my  final  conclusions  and 
suggestions. 

"Does  our  industrial  system  need  to  be  reorganised?" 
or  in  words  which  originated  this  Conference,  "Is  the  present 
manner  whereby  the  products  of  industry  are  distributed 
satisfactory?"  I  cannot  myself  understand  how  any  one 
who  knows  what  the  present  manner  is,  can  think  that  it  is 
satisfactory.  To  me  at  least  it  would  be  enough  to  condemn 
modern  society  as  hardly  an  advance  on  slavery  or  serfdom, 
if  the  permanent  condition  of  industry  were  to  be  that  which 
we  behold,  that  90  per  cent  of  the  actual  producers  of  wealth 
have  no  home  that  they  can  call  their  own  beyond  the  end 
of  the  week ;  have  no  bit  of  soil,  or  so  much  as  a  room,  that 
belongs  to  them ;  have  nothing  of  value  of  any  kind,  except 
as  much  old  furniture  as  will  go  in  a  cart;  have  the  pre- 
carious chance  of  weekly  wages,  which  barely  suffice  to 
keep  them  in  health ;  are  housed  for  the  most  part  in  places 
that  no  man  thinks  fit  for  his  horse;  are  separated  by  so 
narrow  a  margin  from  destitution,  that  a  month  of  bad  trade, 
sickness,  or  unexpected  loss,  brings  them  face  to  face  with 
hunger  and  pauperism. 

In  cities,  the  increasing  organisation  of  factory  work 
makes  life  more  and  more  crowded,  and  work  more  and 
more  a  monotonous  routine;  in  the  country,  the  increasing 
pressure  makes  rural  life  continually  less  free,  healthful, 
and  cheerful;  whilst  the  prizes  and  hopes  of  betterment 
are  now  reduced  to  a  minimum.  This  is  the  normal  state 
of  the  average  workman  in  town  or  country,  to  which  we 
must  add  the  record  of  preventable  disease,  accident,  suffer- 
ing, and  social  oppression  with  its  immense  yearly  roll  of 
death  and  misery.  But  below  this  normal  state  of  the 
average  workman,  there  is  found  the  great  band  of  the 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  369 

destitute  outcasts  —  the  camp-followers  of  the  army  of 
industry  —  at  least  one-tenth  of  the  whole  proletarian 
population,  whose  normal  condition  is  one  of  sickening 
wretchedness.  If  this  is  to  be  the  permanent  arrangement 
of  modern  society,  civilisation  must  be  held  to  bring  a  curse 
on  the  great  majority  of  mankind. 

Is  the  relative  area  of  this  extreme  misery  growing  wider 
or  smaller?  Is  the  normal  state  of  the  average  workman 
growing  better  or  worse?  Is  the  general  lot  of  the  upper 
ranks  of  the  workmen  rising  or  falling?  Taking  England 
and  our  own  generation  only,  I  have  little  doubt  that  there 
is  some  improvement  in  all.  The  proportion  of  the  utterly 
destitute  is  distinctly,  however  slowly,  diminishing.  The 
average  workman,  on  the  whole,  has  gained  in  money- 
values  a  real  advance.  The  fortunate  minority  of  the  most 
highly-skilled  workmen  have  gained  very  considerably. 
The  figures  arrayed  by  consummate  economists  are  far 
too  complete  to  be  doubted.  But  then  this  question  is  by 
no  means  settled  by  figures.  After  all  has  been  said  as  to 
the  rise  of  wages,  as  to  the  fall  of  prices,  as  to  the  cheapening 
of  bread  and  other  necessaries,  there  comes  in  a.  series  of 
questions  as  to  housing,  as  to  permanence  of  employment, 
as  to  the  general  conditions  of  life  in  cities  ever  more  crowded, 
and  in  country  ever  more  and  more  enclosed,  as  to  the 
nature  of  industry  in  the  sum.  These  are  questions  that 
cannot  be  settled  by  statistics  and  comparative  tables.  It 
is  impossible  to  balance  a  gain  of  2d.  on  the  quartern  loaf 
against  the  growing  unhealthiness  and  discomforts  of  an 
increasing  city.  No  one  can  say  if  another  id.  per  hour 
in  wages  is  the  equivalent  of  increased  strain  in  the  industrial 
mill.  No  one  can  exactly  value  all  the  rush  and  squeeze 
of  modern  organised  industry  against  the  personal  freedom 
of  the  old  unorganised  labour. 

2B 


370  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

These  things  one  has  to  judge  in  the  concrete,  and  my 
own  judgment  is  this:  the  fortunate  minority  have  gained, 
even  in  the  sum  total,  at  least  as  much  as  any  other  class 
in  the  community;  and  they  are  in  the  ascendant,  in  the 
way  to  gain  more,  both  positively  and  relatively.  This  is 
due  mainly,  I  hold,  to  their  trades  unions  and  mutual  societies. 
The  average  majority  of  workmen  have,  in  the  sum  total, 
gained  a  little;  but  far  less  than  the  rich  or  the  middle- 
classes.  And  that  little  has  been  gained  at  the  expense 
of  some  evils  which  are  hardly  compatible  with  civilisation. 
The  destitute  residuum  is,  if  relatively  diminishing,  positively 
increasing  in  numbers;  and,  under  the  pressure  of  modern 
organised  life,  is  in  a  condition  of  appalling  barbarism. 
Taking  the  general  condition  of  the  producers  of  wealth 
as  a  whole,  it  is  improving,  but  somewhat  slowly,  and  even 
the  improvement  is  of  so  moderate  a  kind,  and  is  accom- 
panied with  evils  so  menacing  to  society,  that  the  future 
of  civilisation  itself  is  at  stake.  And  herein  I  join  hands 
with  very  much  that  is  said  by  the  earnest  men  of  the  genu- 
ine Socialist  schools,  so  far  as  they  point  out  the  evils  and 
dangers  of  our  actual  system. 

In  particular,  I  heartily  sympathise  with  the  critical 
portions  of  Mr.  Henry  George's  writings,  especially  in  his 
latest  work.  Social  Problems.  That  book  seems  to  me  a 
very  powerful,  and,  in  the  main,  a  very  just,  exposure  of 
the  evils  of  our  industrial  system;  though  I  look  on  his 
pretended  panacea  as  chimerical  and  futile.  But  Mr. 
George,  whose  genius  and  courage  I  cordially  admire,  has 
introduced  one  very  important  consideration.  He  has 
proved,  or  rather  directed  our  attention  to  this,  viz.,  that 
the  evils  long  familiar,  to  all  in  the  industrial  system  of 
Europe  are  already  in  full  operation  in  America  and  other 
new  societies;    that  they  grow  up  with  wonderful  rapidity 


SOCIAL  REMEDIES  371 

within  a  generation  under  conditions  utterly  different  to 
those  of  Europe;  that  they  are  found  in  primitive  com- 
munities, in  democratic  republics,  in  societies  where  virgin 
soil,  unbounded  liberty,  limitless  space,  social  equality, 
and  an  absence  of  all  traditions,  restrictions,  or  hindrances 
whatever,  leave  an  unorganised  crowd  of  freemen  face  to 
face  with  Nature.  It  is  impossible,  therefore,  to  attribute 
these  evils  to  Government,  social  institutions,  laws,  or  his- 
torical conditions.  They  are  the  direct  growth  of  modern 
industrial  habits;  and  they  develop  with  portentous  rapidity 
directly  industry  finds  a  field  wherein  to  organise  itself, 
even  in  the  most  free  and  the  most  new  of  all  modern  societies. 
Mr.  George,  I  say,  has  shown  us  that  the  evils  of  our  industrial 
system  are  the  direct  product  of  the  industrial  system  itself. 

This  spectacle  of  the  growth  of  free  industry  in  America 
affords  a  sufficient  answer  to  those  who  call  out  for  absolute 
freedom  from  state  interference.  In  the  United  States  we 
have  state  interference  at  its  minimum,  and  the  freedom 
and  independence  of  the  individual  citizen  at  its  maximum. 
And  this  seems  precisely  the  field  where  industry  breeds 
the  evils  of  the  industrial  system  with  the  greatest  rapidity. 
It  is  here,  where  the  state  does  the  least,  and  where  the 
individual  is  most  independent,  that  we  have  colossal  acci- 
dents, gigantic  frauds,  organised  plunder,  systematic  adultera- 
tion, the  greatest  insecurity  of  property  and  of  person,  and 
commerce  fast  reducing  itself  to  a  science  of  swindling. 
This  should  be  enough  to  warn  us  that  it  is  impossible  to 
make  an  absolute  principle  of  the  doctrine  of  non-inter- 
ference. Where  the  state  can  usefully  interfere,  and  where 
it  cannot,  is  for  each  society  a  matter  to  be  discovered  by 
practical  experiment. 

The  sticklers  for  absolute  respect  for  Liberty  and  Prop- 
erty have  not  the  courage  of  their  doctrines.      If   they  are 


372  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

logical  they  should  ask  for  the  abolition  of  all  legislation 
against  truck,  dangerous  structures  or  practices,  unhealthy 
buildings,  oppressive  regulations,  and  fraudulent  devices 
of  any  kind.  They  ought  even  to  call  for  the  abolition  of 
all  inspection,  all  compulsion,  all  monopolies,  and  all  state 
manufactures,  or  even  regulation  of  industry  in  any  form. 
Cab-drivers  would  be  free  to  charge  the  unwary  what  they 
pleased ;  girls  and  boys  would  be  ill-used  in  any  way  short 
of  open  violence.  The  population  would  grow  up  a  prey  to 
small-pox  and  all  infectious  diseases;  the  children  would 
be  untaught ;  salesmen  would  be  free  to  falsify  their  weights 
and  measures,  and  to  adulterate  their  goods  without  check; 
sailors  would  be  drowned,  pitmen  blown  to  cinders,  and 
trains  wrecked  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  certain  owners; 
and  we  should  have  to  forward  our  own  letters,  and  (why 
not  ?)  protect  our  own  houses  ourselves. 

Society  would  be  dissolved  in  the  name  of  the  sacred  rights 
of  self-help  and  property.  The  limits  of  age,  sex,  or  special 
industry  have  no  abstract  force,  apart  from  convenience. 
If  it  degrades  a  man  to  have  state  protection,  it  must  degrade 
a  woman;  if  it  is  good  for  a  young  person  of  14  to  be  under 
compulsion  or  inspection,  it  cannot  be  so  evil  for  a  young 
person  of  18  or  20  to  be  so  also.  If  there  be  any  absolute 
doctrine  of  non-interference,  the  age  of  12,  14,  17,  or  21 
cannot  override  it;  nor  does  a  factory  girl  of  16  differ  so 
much  from  a  factory  lad  of  16,  or  even  of  21.  Once  show 
a  few  cases  where  state  control  has  certainly  made  industrial 
life  a  little  more  human,  and  checked  some  forms  of  misery, 
and  the  abstract  doctrine  of  non-interference  is  blown  to 
the  winds.  But  cases  of  successful  state  control  abound 
in  all  societies,  and  notably  in  ours.  The  rule  of  caveat 
emptor  is  perfectly  observed  only  by  savages. 

I  turn  to  the  first  alternative  proposal,  the  more  general 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  373 

distribution  of  capital  and  land.  No  one  who  knows  the 
working-man,  so  to  speak,  at  home,  can  doubt  how  great 
an  advance  in  well-being  and  independence  is  the  possession 
of  a  little  capital,  a  bit  of  land,  however  small.  Only  those 
who  do  know  him  at  home  can  truly  judge  how  great  an 
advance  it  is.  The  workmen  of  such  cities  as  Rochdale, 
HaHfax,  Huddersfield,  Leeds,  Newcastle,  and  Oldham, 
where  the  unions,  the  co-operative,  building,  and  benefit 
societies  are  in  strong  force,  are  in  an  altogether  different 
world  from  that  of  the  average  town  and  country  labourer, 
who  on  a  Friday  night  is  the  owner  at  most  of  a  few  shillings 
and  five  pounds'  worth  of  old  furniture.  The  co-operative 
societies,  with  their  twenty-six  milHons  sterling  of  annual 
sales,  are  only  one  and  the  best  known  of  the  many  agencies. 
The  trades  unions,  with  their  large  reserve  funds,  and  their 
accident,  sickness,  and  out-of-work  benefits,  are  but  another 
mode  of  securing  to  workmen  some  of  the  advantages  of 
reserve  capital.  All  the  various  forms  of  insurance  and 
benefit  societies,  the  land  and  building  societies,  do  the  same. 
The  prudent,  energetic  workman  of  our  northern  industrial 
districts,  who  can  afford  to  take  advantage  of  all  the  mutual 
benefit  associations  available  to  him,  may  be  said  to  be  in 
a  position  of  something  like  security  and  comfort.  If  he 
is  sick,  out  of  work,  or  meets  with  an  accident  to  himself 
or  his  tools,  he  is  not  forced  to  pawn  his  bedding;  when 
he  is  superannuated,  he  is  not  driven  to  the  poorhouse; 
when  he  dies,  he  is  not  buried  by  the  parish.  He  gets 
wholesome  food,  good  clothing,  and  furniture  at  wholesale 
prices;  he  has  a  good  library  and  club,  a  night  school,  and 
an  annual  holiday;  and  he  comes  to  be  master  of  a  house 
and  garden  of  his  own.  This  is  the  bright  side  of  the  picture ; 
but  of  how  few  can  it  be  said  to  be  true !  Perhaps,  at  the 
most,  of  5  per  cent  of  our  total  working  population;    and 


374  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

of  that  5  per  cent  almost  the  whole  are  factory  artisans, 
who  alone,  by  their  higher  wages  and  the  employment  of 
whole  families,  can  afford  the  needful  weekly  subscriptions. 

With  the  rural  labourer  the  story  is  very  different.  How 
rare  is  the  case  where  he  owns  anything,  or  has  the  remotest 
hope  of  ever  owning  anything !  Every  ordinary  misfortune 
of  Hfe  —  sickness,  accident,  infirmity,  old  age  —  to  him 
means  simply  parochial  relief,  charity,  the  workhouse. 
He  drinks  poisonous  water,  eats  bad  and  adulterated  food, 
lives  a  life  without  rational  amusement,  without  freedom, 
without  hope.  Compare  the  British  labourer  with  the 
peasant  owner  of  France,  Italy,  Belgium,  Switzerland,  or 
America,  and  he  appears  to  be  at  the  opposite  pole  of  com- 
fort and  independence.  It  would  be  wasting  time  to  multiply 
proofs  that  the  more  general  distribution  of  capital  and 
of  land  does  promote  the  welfare  of  the  labourer.  Every 
means  which  contribute  to  that  end  are,  in  my  judgment, 
an  unmixed  good,  whether  they  take  the  form  of  co-opera- 
tion, trades  unions,  benefit,  building,  insurance,  or  joint- 
stock  societies,  or  peasant  occupation  and  holdings.  Nay, 
I  go  much  farther,  and  I  insist  that  until  the  working-man 
—  whether  in  town  or  in  country  —  has  at  least  as  much 
possessory  interest  in  his  home  as  an  average  middle-class 
man  now  has,  and  until  he  can  count  on  so  much  capital, 
or  its  equivalent,  as  will  keep  him  (if  needs  be)  from  destitu- 
tion for  a  year  at  least,  the  first  conditions  of  civilised  industry 
are  wanting. 

But  the  question  before  us  is  whether  the  reorganisation 
of  industry  and  the  welfare  of  the  community  are  to  be 
found  in  a  general  distribution  of  capital  and  land.  And 
here  we  are  met  by  two  irresistible  facts.  The  first  is,  that 
the  universal  tendency  of  organised  industry,  rural  or  urban, 
is  towards  the  massing,  and  not  the  dispersion,  of  capital. 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  375 

The  highly  specialised  subdivisions  of  all  modem  production, 
the  increasing  use  of  complex  machinery,  and  the  greater 
economy  of  all  aggregate  operations,  make  the  massing  of 
capital  more  and  more  essential  to  efficient  production. 
In  America  and  in  new  societies,  even  more  than  in  the  old, 
the  same  causes  are  at  work.  Increased  concentration  of 
capital  is  an  indispensable  condition  of  modern  successful 
industry.  Even  in  rural  England,  where  the  concentration 
of  estates  seems  almost  to  have  reached  a  maximum,  the 
consoHdation  of  farms  goes  on;  the  big  industry  is  driving 
out  the  little.  The  ancient  controversies  as  to  great  and 
Httle  culture  of  land  have  now  ended  in  this:  that  for  the 
largest  production  of  cereals  and  stock  and  for  the  highest 
scientific  farming  the  big-scale  culture  at  least  is  indispens- 
able, even  if  the  ownership  be  subdivided. 

In  urban  industry  no  room  is  left  even  for  debate.  Col- 
lective industry  has  almost  extinguished  individual  industry. 
Factory  production  has  swallowed  up  home  production; 
the  spinning  wheel,  the  hand-loom,  the  village  workshop, 
are  now  the  bows  and  arrows  of  modern  industry.  The 
middleman,  the  chapman,  the  small  trader,  the  petty  manu- 
facturer, the  private  banker,  the  small  builder,  the  village 
store,  are  every  day  superseded  by  big  companies,  central 
agencies,  or  big  capitalists  who  are  consolidated  companies 
and  agencies  in  themselves.  In  the  face  of  this  universal 
law  of  modern  industry,  a  law  the  more  conspicuous  the  more 
free  and  virgin  be  the  field  of  industry,  how  idle  would  it 
be  to  look  for  any  regeneration  of  the  industrial  system 
to  a  natural  dispersion  of  capital  or  land !  In  the  teeth 
of  universal  tendencies  such  as  these,  it  is  rather  unnatural 
to  struggle  for  a  revival  of  the  equable  distribution  of  capital 
and  land  which  marks  the  ruder  types  of  society. 

The  second  objection  is  a  result  of  the  first.     As  a  fact, 


376  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

the  possession  of  capital  and  of  land  is  reached  only  by  an 
insignificant  fraction  of  the  labour  population.  After  all 
has  been  allowed  for  the  work  done  by  trades  unions,  co- 
operation, benefit  societies,  and  the  like,  it  touches  only 
a  fortunate  few.  Even  the  most  flourishing  and  progressive 
of  these  movements  hardly  advance  more  rapidly  than 
population  and  the  general  wealth  of  the  community:  in 
other  words,  they  barely  hold  their  own.  Trades-unionism 
may  now  be  said  to  be,  as  an  efficient  movement,  about 
fifty  years  old;  co-operation  is  forty  years  old;  most  of  the 
mutual-benefit  movements  are  in  their  second  or  third  genera- 
tion. It  is  time  that  the  enthusiasts  of  each  recognised 
the  very  narrow  limit  of  their  real  work.  They  practically 
affect  the  fortunate  minority  alone.  Ninety  per  cent  of 
the  labour  population  scarcely  feel  any  direct  benefit  from 
them. 

Co-operation,  in  particular,  has  a  melancholy  failure  to 
acknowledge.  Too  much  has  been  made  of  the  fact  that 
a  small  fraction  of  the  labouring  classes  (600,000  or  700,000 
all  told)  have  learned  to  buy  their  tea  and  sugar  in  economi- 
cal ways  at  stores  and  clubs.  There  is  no  social  millennium 
in  this.  Co-operation  started  forty  years  ago  with  a  mission, 
to  revolutionise  industry,  to  aboHsh  the  wages  system,  and 
to  produce  by  associated  labour,  so  that  the  labourer  should 
share  in  the  profit  of  his  labour.  Over  and  over  again  the 
effort  has  been  made  to  start  true  co-operative  production, 
all  workers  sharing  the  profits.  Over  and  over  again  it  has 
failed.  It  has  been  a  cruel  disappointment  to  the  noble- 
hearted  men  who  forty  years  ago,  and  since,  have  hoped 
that  they  had  found  a  new  social  machine,  to  see  these 
hopes  ruined  by  the  indomitable  force  of  personal  interest 
and  the  old  Adam  of  industrial  selfishness. 

One  after  another  all  types  of  co-operative  production 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  377 

worthy  of  the  name  have  disappeared.  Here  and  there 
a  few  associated  artisans  or  artists  struggle  on  in  a  small 
business  where  capital  is  hardly  needed.  In  1883  the  united 
profits  of  all  productive  societies  in  the  kingdom  was  less 
than  ;^i 5,000.  This  does  not  count  the  flour-mills,  which 
are  merely  a  form  of  store  for  the  convenient  supply  of  food. 
What  a  drop  in  the  ocean  of  the  total  earnings  of  the  work- 
ing classes,  ;^5oo,ooo,ooo,  is  this  annual  profit  of  ;^i 5,000! 
But  co-operative  employers  usually,  like  other  employers, 
give  little  but  the  market  rate  of  wages,  and  secure  the  best 
dividends  they  can.  Why  should  they  not?  they  ask;  for 
they  are  poor  men,  trying  to  rise.  Why  not  indeed  ?  Only 
they  make  it  plain  that  co-operation  is  simply  a  name  for 
a  joint-stock  company;  and  the  idea  that  it  is  about  to 
reorganise  modern  industry  is  now  an  exploded  day-dream.^ 
Trades  unionism,  which  I  have  known  intimately  for 
twenty-five  years,  is  an  even  more  important  and  efficient 
engine  of  industrial  improvement,  mainly  because  its  in- 
direct influence  is  at  least  as  great  as  its  direct  influence. 
A  trades  union  usually  benefits  indirectly  quite  as  many 
non-members  as  members,  sometimes  perhaps  twice  as  many. 
A  powerful  trades  union  often  improves  the  condition  of 
the  whole  trade.  But,  at  the  utmost,  trades  unions  sub- 
stantially affect  only  the  minority.  Of  the  twelve  millions  of 
earners,  certainly  not  one  million  are  in  union.  In  one  or 
two  of  the  most  skilled  trades,  the  unionists  are  the  majority ; 
but,  taking  the  whole  labouring  population  of  these  islands, 
the  unionists  are  a  mere  fraction,  the  aristocracy  of  labour. 
Nor  is  this  fraction  now  relatively  growing.  Trades-unionism, 
in  the  sum,  is  not  an  advancing  movement. 

'  In  1883,  the  aggregate  dividend  paid  by  these  productive  societies  in 
England  was  under  ;£5ooo.  About  £ioo  was  devoted  to  educational  and 
charitable  purposes,  about  twice  as  much  to  labour,  apart  from  capital  or 
purchases.     In  1900  the  dividend  to  workers  was  ;£2o,545  (1908). 


378  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

In  two  generations  now  it  has  shown  itself  utterly  power- 
less to  reach  the  residuum,  or  even  materially  to  combine 
the  great  average  mass.  In  spite  of  all  the  creditable  efforts 
made  by  the  larger  unions,  and  by  the  annual  congress  and 
the  like,  unionism  in  its  average,  and  certainly  in  its  lower, 
types  tends  rather  to  sectional  and  class  interests;  it  divides 
trade  from  trade,  members  from  non-members;  and  espe- 
cially it  accentuates  that  sinister  gulf  which  separates  the 
skilled  and  well-paid  artisan  from  the  unskilled  labourer, 
and  from  the  vast  destitute  residuum.  Our  industrial 
competition  forces  these  classes  into  permanent  antagonism. 
Unionism  too  often  deepens  this  antagonism  into  bitter 
and  unsocial  war.^ 

It  is  vain  indeed  to  expect  the  permanent  reorganisation 
of  industry  from  any  one  of  the  movements  which  tend  to 
the  more  general  distribution  of  capital  or  land ;  nor  is  there 
any  reasonable  probability  that  this  will  come  about  naturally. 
The  steady  logic  of  facts  is  towards  the  concentration  of 
capital  and  not  its  distribution;  and  all  the  movements 
for  promoting  that  distribution  but  touch  the  topmost  layers ; 
they  scarcely  affect  the  mass,  and  do  nothing  for  the  lowest 
state  of  destitution.  They  leave  the  general  organisation 
of  the  industrial  system  exactly  as  they  find  it.  They  do 
almost  nothing  to  moralise  it,  to  infuse  into  it  a  new  spirit; 
and  they  distinctly  decline  to  revolutionise  the  industrial 
system  itself.  Trades-unionism  indeed,  the  best  and  by 
far  the  most  powerful  of  these  agencies,  is  a  strongly  con- 
servative movement,  and  depends  for  its  activity  on  the 
actual  industrial  system  as  it  is.  Compared  with  the  gigantic 
and  deep-seated  evils  of  our  present  society,  these  various 
schemes  for  the  general  distribution  of  capital  are  mere 
palliatives,  stop-gaps,  and  insignificant  experiments.     Nine- 

*  The  new  unionism  and  socialism  have  now  much  changed  this  (1908). 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  379 

tenths  of  our  working  people,  nine-tenths  of  their  wages, 
are  hardly  affected  by  them  at  all. 

I  turn  to  the  various  proposals  for  the  state  management 
of  capital  and  land,  that  is  to  say,  to  the  nationalisation 
of  the  soil,  and  Communism  pure  and  simple.  There  is 
nothing  particularly  new  about  the  proposals  of  Mr.  Henry 
George.  In  the  last  century,  Thomas  Spence,  in  Newcastle, 
proposed  very  similar  theories,  and  the  Spencean  clubs  of 
that  period  were  quite  as  vigorous  as  the  land  nationalisa- 
tion societies  are  now.  Mr.  George  has,  however,  given 
the  discussion  a  new  interest  by  his  eloquence,  passion, 
and  his  experiences  of  the  new  societies  across  the  Atlantic. 
I  have  already  expressed  my  admiration  of  Mr.  George's 
genius  and  energy.  And  I  will  add  this:  his  dealing  with 
the  land  question  has  drawn  attention  to  some  important 
truths,  so  valuable  that  if  all  the  rest  of  his  arguments  were 
worthless,  this  would  still  make  him  one  of  the  most  vigorous 
social   thinkers   of  our  time. 

The  greater  part  of  his  criticism  of  our  present  distribu- 
tion of  wealth  is  right  in  principle,  even  if  exaggerated  in 
statement.  He  has  abundantly  proved  that  it  is  not  due 
to  any  special  conditions  of  English  society,  law,  or  institu- 
tions. He  has  thrown  fresh  light  on  the  danger  of  permitting 
to  the  owners  of  the  soil  in  cities  the  absolute  disposal  of  its 
surface  and  the  buildings  on  it.  And  in  particular  he  has 
done  admirable  service  in  insisting  on  the  necessity  for  a 
genuine  land  tax.  I  am  prepared  myself  to  go  with  him 
so  far  as  to  see  a  fifth  at  least  of  our  national  income  raised 
by  a  tax  on  land  and  ground-rents,  as  is  usual  in  most  other 
civilised  communities.  But  all  these  proposals  are  part  of 
the  accepted  programme  of  all  radical  reforms.  And 
Mr.  George  has  done  nothing  to  put  them  into  practical 
and   workable   form. 


380  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

When,  however,  he  goes  on  to  represent  the  appropriation 
of  the  soil  in  private  hands  as  the  cause  of  all  social  misery, 
and  the  state  confiscation  of  the  soil  as  the  panacea  for 
every  ill  that  afflicts  society  or  the  working  poor,  no  wilder 
sophism  was  ever  uttered  by  a  sane  man.  I  will  not,  in  a 
serious  gathering  of  cultivated  men,  waste  a  word  on  his 
invocations  to  the  will  of  God  or  the  rights  of  man.  Rant 
of  this  kind  is  more  fitting  to  a  negro  camp-meeting  than  to 
an  industrial  enquiry.  I  come  at  once  to  what  I  hold  to 
be  the  central  error  of  all  land  nationalisation  theories  what- 
ever.    It  is  assumed   in  all  — 

(i)  That  property  in  land  is  something  different  toto 
ccbIo  from  any  other  kind  of  property. 

(2)  That  property  in  land  represents  a  mere  legal  right, 
nothing  of  real  value  apart  from  its  arbitrary  and  fictitious 
value. 

(3)  That  property  in  land  retains  its  value  without  any 
act  or  expenditure  on  the  part  of  the  owner. 

(4)  That  there  is  some  mysterious  wickedness  about 
ownership  of  the  soil,  some  social  mischief  which  is  not 
at  all  shared  in  by  mere  permanent  occupation  of  the  soil. 

Every  one  of  these  assumptions  is  false.  The  appro- 
priation of  the  soil  rests  on  precisely  the  same  grounds  as 
any  other  appropriation.  If  there  is  anything  wicked  and 
socially  mischievous  in  private  property  in  land,  the  same 
wickedness  and  mischief  exist  in  any  other  private  property. 
The  former  is  the  appropriation  of  an  immovable  and  the 
latter  of  a  movable;  but  there  the  distinction  ends.  There 
are  things  far  more  rare  than  the  soil,  and  quite  as  essential 
to  human  life.  The  appropriation  of  all  the  salt  in  India, 
or  of  all  the  coal  or  wood  in  England,  would  create  a  mo- 
nopoly far  more  formidable,  and  would  sooner  make  the 
monopolist   master   of   the   community   than   any   possible 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  38 1 

appropriation  of  the  soil.  Raffaelle's  pictures  and  ancient 
statues  are  far  more  rare  than  even  the  soil  of  these  islands. 
And  fuel,  ships,  or  iron  are  quite  as  necessary  to  existence. 

If  property  becomes  sin,  when  extended  to  things  of  which 
the  supply  is  limited,  the  ownership  of  diamonds,  coal, 
antiquities,  and  ancient  manuscripts  must  be  even  more 
unholy.  To  lay  down  a  social  law  that  no  one  shall  own 
anything  which  is  much  wanted  by  others,  would  apply  in 
turn  to  almost  every  subject  of  property.  Food,  building 
materials,  horses,  minerals,  even  books  and  newspapers, 
become  in  certain  societies  and  under  certain  conditions, 
things  of  special  desire,  and  suddenly  enrich  the  fortunate 
owners.  The  unearned  increment  applies  to  everything 
in  turn.  The  window  of  an  attic  which  commands  the 
view  of  some  historical  scene,  the  house  in  which  Shakespeare 
lived  and  died,  the  Times  newspaper  with  the  account  of 
the  battle  of  Waterloo,  suddenly  become  a  fortune  in  the 
hands  of  some  lucky  owner.  It  is  as  much  or  as  little  criminal 
to  own  them  as  to  own  a  bit  of  soil.  If  rarity  and  a  general 
desire  to  possess  them  make  things  incapable  of  appropria- 
tion, the  rule  should  apply  to  thousands  of  things  besides  land. 

Immense  nonsense  is  afloat  respecting  "the  unearned 
increment."  The  unearned  increment  is  the  result  of 
civilised  society  which  gives  special  value  to  various  things, 
quite  apart  from  any  act  of  their  possessors.  In  a  besieged 
city,  the  fortunate  holders  of  food,  in  a  war,  the  possessors 
of  ships,  saltpetre,  guns,  and  the  like,  suddenly  find  that 
their  property  has  "an  unearned  increment."  The  buyers 
of  the  first  edition  of  the  Modern  Painters,  Turner's  Liber 
Studiorum,  or  Tennyson's  poems,  are  in  the  same  case. 
Those  who  have  bought  a  piece  of  land  in  a  spot  where 
a  town  begins  to  rise  are  in  precisely  the  same  position. 
It  may  be  quite  right  for  the  state  to  prevent  the  possessors 


382  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

of  the  soil  from  hindering  the  free  development  of  the  town. 
But  why  should  the  state  confiscate  the  "unearned  incre- 
ment" of  the  piece  of  ground,  and  not  the  "unearned  in- 
crement" of  the  book,  the  grain,  or  the  saltpetre? 

Nor  is  it  true  that  land  is  a  positively  limited  thing. 
There  are  still  boundless  tracts  on  the  earth's  surface  not 
actually  occupied.  Land  is  in  no  sense  so  limited  as  wood, 
iron,  coal,  salt,  not  to  speak  of  Greek  statues  and  illuminated 
manuscripts.  And  in  each  country,  even  in  ours,  the  quantity 
of  cultivated  and  useful  land  is  a  constantly  fluctuating 
amount.  The  land  in  practical  occupation  is  now  probably 
one-fifth  more  than  it  was  fifty  years  ago;  and  perhaps 
one-twentieth  less  than  it  was  ten  years  ago.  The  land 
of  any  country  in  actual  occupation  varies  from  year  to 
year  very  largely,  far  more  than  iron,  coal,  wood,  or  old 
books  and  pictures  vary  in  amount.  At  this  hour,  there 
are  millions  of  acres  of  the  soil  of  these  islands  which  are 
perfectly  at  the  service  of  Mr.  George  and  his  friends,  at 
a  rental  of  is.  an  acre,  if  he  likes  to  lease  them,  and  to  convert 
them  into  good  farms.  It  is  untrue  that  the  soil  even  of 
this  island  is  all  allotted  out  and  closed  for  ever.  There 
are  millions  of  acres  still  to  be  had  which  might  be  made 
perfectly  serviceable  to  man  at  an  outlay  of  so  much  per 
acre.  What  is  lacking  is  the  capital  or  the  labour  willing 
to  convert  them.  For  practical  men  well  knov/  that  to  con- 
vert these  waste  lands  into  farms  would  involve  a  ruinous 
loss.  It  would  not  pay  one  per  cent.  Why,  then,  should 
the  "state"  be  required  to  make  an  outlay  which  is  certain 
to  prove  a  ruinous  loss? 

This  brings  us  to  the  point  that  property  in  the  soil  rep- 
resents not  a  bare  legal  right  to  exclude  others,  but  the 
actual  expenditure  of  capital  and  labour.  The  underlying 
fallacy  of  Mr,  George  is  to  think  that  land  is  a  thing  like 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  ^8^ 

the  sea,  and  raising  produce  from  it  is  a  simple  process, 
like  catching  fish.  There  are  exceptional  cases  and  extreme 
limits.  But  an  ordinary  farm  is  as  much  artificial  as  a  house 
or  a  factory.  Good  farm  land  in  England  is  the  work  of 
enormous  outlay  and  labour.  In  its  primitive  condition 
it  was  moor,  swamp,  thicket,  or  sandy  wilderness.  Perhaps 
not  a  twentieth  part  of  this  island  in  its  original  state  (Mr. 
George  would  say  as  God  made  it)  was  of  any  use  at  all  to 
man.  There  is  hardly  an  acre  of  cultivated  land  in  England 
which  has  not  been  made  cultivable  by  a  great  outlay  of 
labour  and  capital.  It  has  really  been  as  much  built  up  as 
a  railway  or  a  dock.  Immense  tracts  of  fine  farm  land 
have  been  in  this  very  century  slowly  won  from  a  state  of 
barren  wilderness  by  continuous  labour  and  the  enormous 
expenditure  of  capital.  The  whole  of  the  corn  lands  recently 
gained  from  the  open  down  and  moor,  forming  large  parts 
of  eight  or  ten  southern  and  south-western  counties,  the  vast 
and  fertile  regions  in  Lincolnshire,  Cambridgeshire,  and 
other  North-Eastern  counties,  redeemed  from  saltmarsh, 
fen,  and  swamp,  have  been  made  quite  as  completely  by 
human  industry  as  a  ship  or  a  steam-engine. 

It  is  idle  to  repeat  sophistical  platitudes  that  God  made 
the  earth,'  but  man  made  the  ship  or  the  engine.  The  ship 
and  the  engine  are  merely  materials  found  on  and  in  the 
earth,  worked  into  useful  forms,  and  arranged  by  human 
industry  to  serve  man's  wants.  So  is  a  farm.  No  farm 
in  England  is  in  the  state  in  which  it  is  supposed  that  God 
left  it  af  the  creation  of  the  earth.  It  has  been  worked  up 
and  rearranged  by  human  labour  extending  over  centuries. 
The  farm  is  also,  like  the  ship  or  the  engine,  a  mass  of  the 
earth's  materials  so  changed  and  placed  that  it  can  grow 
food.  Apart  from  that  labour,  an  acre,  say,  in  the  Bedford 
Level,  or  on  the  Wiltshire  Downs,  would  be  as  perfectly 


384  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

worthless  as  an  acre  on  the  top  of  Snowdon  or  on  the  Good- 
win Sands.  It  is  certainly  immovable,  whilst  an  engine 
or  a  ship,  under  conditions,  and  with  great  expense  and 
labour,  is  movable.  But  this  is  a  mere  incident.  A  ship 
stranded  is  also  immovable;  and  so  is  an  engine,  in  the 
absence  of  capital  to  move  it. 

Hence  we  find  that  large  portions  of  the  soil  of  England 
have  every  quality  possessed  by  other  purely  personal  prop- 
erty, which  Mr.  George  does  not  propose  to  touch.  Even 
he  would  be  scandalised  at  a  proposal  to  confiscate  the  ships 
and  engines  built  and  owned  by  private  persons,  on  the 
ground  that  their  material  was  simply  a  portion  of  the  earth's 
soil,  which  no  man  has  a  right  to  appropriate.  Society 
judges  it  wise  to  guarantee  property  in  ships  and  engines 
to  those  whose  capital  has  procured  them  to  be  built,  in  order 
to  encourage  citizens  to  employ  their  savings  in  a  way  useful 
to  the  community.  On  precisely  the  same  grounds  it  guar- 
antees property  in  the  Bedford  Level  to  those  whose  capital 
has  procured  it  to  be  made. 

The  Bedford  Level  is  no  doubt  an  extreme  case.  But 
it  is  only  a  matter  of  degree.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of 
acres  in  England  have  been  made  by  human  toil,  skill, 
and  capital,  quite  as  completely  as  the  Bedford  Level  was 
made  out  of  tidal  swamps.  To  a  very  great  degree  every 
cultivated  acre  in  England  has  also  been  so  made.  Clearing 
of  timber  and  brushwood,  of  stones,  weeds,  and  other 
growths,  draining,  fencing,  damming,  bridging,  making 
roads,  barns,  farmsteads  and  the  like,  ponds,  wells,  water- 
courses, and  the  hundreds  of  works  without  which  the  land 
could  not  bear  produce  —  these  costly  operations  were 
necessary  for  every  farm  alike.  If  the  people,  by  God's 
law,  have  a  right  to  God's  earth,  they  can  only  have  a  right 
to  that  earth  in  the  state  in  which  God  created  it. 


SOCIAL  REMEDIES  385 

Let  US  assume  that  Mr.  George  is  right,  and  that  we  agree 
to  hand  back  the  soil  to  the  people.  It  would  be  grossly 
unjust  to  hand  it  back  to  them  in  any  other  state  than  a 
state  of  nature.  Assume  that  we  could  replace  it  in  that 
state,  in  the  state,  say,  in  which  Julius  Caesar  saw  it  when 
he  came  over  from  Gaul.  This  island  then  consisted  of 
pathless  tracts  of  jungle,  fen,  moor,  wood,  and  heath.  The 
valleys  of  the  great  rivers  were  periodically  under  water; 
the  estuaries  on  the  coast  were  boundless  salt  fens;  the  up- 
lands were  sandy  or  stony  wildernesses;  there  were  only 
two  or  three  varieties  of  tree;  four  or  five  very  common 
herbs;  and  about  as  many  coarse  wild  fruits.  It  would 
be  impossible  for  any  but  hunters  and  coracle  boatmen  to 
get  about  the  country ;  there  would  be  hardly  any  food  for 
man  or  cattle;  neither  man  nor  beast  could  live  anywhere 
except  on  patches  here  and  there,  mostly  in  aquatic  villages 
or  on  detached  and  stony  hills.  At  the  utmost,  one-twentieth 
of  the  soil  could  be  used  for  human  produce,  and  that  only 
in  the  rudest  way  for  a  few  necessaries.  Nineteen-twentieths 
of  the  soil  would  be  as  absolutely  useless  for  human  food 
as  Dartmoor  and  the  Wash  are  now.  That  is  the  condition 
in  which  God  gave  the  soil  of  England  to  the  people  of 
England;  and  that  is  the  condition  in  which  they  should, 
by  God's  law,  receive  it  back. 

To  seize  it,  after  centuries  and  centuries  of  labour  have 
been,  by  man's  law,  expended  in  utterly  changing  its  very 
face  and  nature,  would  be  monstrously  unjust.  We  have 
lately  by  legislation  remedied  what  most  of  us  hold  to  be 
a  cruel  injustice  to  Ireland,  where  the  labour  which  A  had 
put  into  the  soil  was  confiscated  by  B.  In  Ireland,  the 
mountain-side  and  the  bog  had  often  been  won  into  culti- 
vation and  usefulness  by  the  incessant  labour  of  some  tenant, 
or  perhaps  squatter  or  bare  occupant.     Mr.    George  has 

2C 


386  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

justly  inveighed  against  the  outrageous  injustice  done,  when 
the  farm  so  reclaimed  by  the  labour  and  capital  of  the  peas- 
ant was  claimed,  plus  its  improvements,  by  the  mere  owner 
of  the  soil.  We  heartily  agree  with  him.  On  what  ground  ? 
Because  we  find  it  unjust  that  the  men  who  may  fairly  claim 
the  soil  should  plunder,  along  with  the  soil,  the  visible  result 
of  another's  labour  and  capital.  In  England  it  is  not  the 
occupant  but  the  owner,  or  those  whom  the  owner  repre- 
sents, who  have  expended  on  the  soil  that  labour  which  alone 
has  made  it  useful  to  man.  Mr.  George,  therefore,  is  going 
to  do  in  England  exactly  what  he  and  we  find  so  monstrous 
in  Ireland.  Granted  that  the  soil  of  England  belongs  to  the 
people  of  England.  Then  he  is  calling  on  the  people  of 
England  not  only  to  seize  the  soil,  but  to  confiscate  the  enor- 
mous wealth  representing  the  outlay  by  which  the  soil  has 
been  transformed.  He  is  going  on  a  colossal  scale  to  repeat 
the  injustice  which  in  a  very  minor  form  we  have  just  re- 
dressed by  legislation. 

Some  schools  of  land  nationalisation  propose  what  they 
call  compensation  on  this  confiscation.  What  they  pro- 
pose is,  however,  no  compensation  at  all.  It  is  not,  and 
never  can  be,  any  kind  of  equivalent  for  the  capital  expended. 
The  strict  prairie  value  of  agricultural  land  in  England 
would  hardly  amount  to  one  year's  rent.  The  improved 
value,  representing  capital  expended  in  making  the  prairie 
cultivable,  would  usually  exceed  twenty  years'  rent.  It 
may  be  doubted  if  ;^2, 000,000,000  would  go  any  way  in 
making  the  soil  of  England  what  it  is  to-day,  supposing 
that  it  were  in  the  state  in  which  Julius  Caesar,  or  even 
William  the  Conqueror,  found  it.  The  idea  that  the  owners 
of  the  soil  simply  represent  a  parchment-right  granted  ages 
ago  by  some  sovereign  or  paramount  authority  is  almost 
too  ridiculous  to  discuss. 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  387 

There  is  perhaps  not  a  single  enclosed  and  cultivated  acre 
in  England  on  which  human  labour  has  not  been  expended 
and  paid  for  far  in  excess  of  many  years'  rent;  it  would  be 
easy  to  show  that  in  some  spots  forty,  fifty,  even  a  hundred 
years'  rental  would  not  cover  the  loss  and  outlay  sunk  in 
making  it  fertile.  We  ought  to  calculate,  not  merely  the 
bare  clearing,  draining,  and  enclosing  the  particular  farm, 
but  the  whole  of  the  permanent  works  needed  to  make  any 
given  district  cultivable  as  it  now  is  —  the  vast  and  ancient 
operations  of  dyking  rivers,  estuaries,  and  watercourses, 
the  road-making,  bridge-making,  and  planting,  the  sum 
of  those  labours  which  make  an  English  county  so  utterly 
unhke  the  same  soil  in  the  days  of  the  Heptarchy/  It  is 
as  great  a  difference  as  that  between  a  frockcoat  and  a  sheep's 
fleece.  Mr.  George  might  as  well  claim  the  coats  off  our 
backs,  on  the  ground  that  God  made  the  sheep,  as  the  farms 
which  have  been  made  by  human  capital  and  skill. 

It  is  idle  to  seek  now  to  unravel  all  the  titles  to  every  plot 
in  England.  The  notion  that  the  soil  of  England  is  held 
to-day  under  grants  made  by  Norman  and  Tudor  kings  is 
obviously  childish.  It  would  be  easy  to  show  that  an  im- 
mense proportion  of  it  is  now  held  by  the  assigns  of  those 
who  paid  hard  money  or  money's  worth  for  it.  Somebody 
gave  or  paid  for  the  labour ;  and  it  would  be  as  idle  to  trace 
back  the  heirs  of  the  original  labourers  as  it  would  be  to 
find  the  men  who  made  our  coats,  or  the  heirs  of  the  brick- 
layers who  laid  the  walls  of  our  houses.  In  civilised  so- 
ciety the  legal  ownership  of  an  article  is  assumed  to  represent 
the  value  given  for  the  labour  expended  on  it.     If  every  man 

*  The  works  here  spoken  of  are  all  the  beneficial  constructions  for  the 
permanent  improvement  of  the  soil,  made  at  the  cost  of  successive  owners 
of  the  land.  It  does  not  include  high  roads,  bridges,  or  other  works  paid 
for  by  the  parish,  the  county,  or  any  public  body.  Every  one  knows  that 
in  every  large  property  there  are  occupation  roads,  bridges,  dykes,  and  other 
works  necessarily  paid  for  by  the  proprietor. 


388  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

were  liable  to  have  his  coat  confiscated  off  his  back,  unless 
he  could  show  that  he  had  paid  his  tailor,  that  the  tailor 
had  paid  the  clothier,  that  the  clothier  had  paid  the  farmer, 
that  the  farmer  had  paid  the  shepherd,  and  so  on  ad  infini- 
tum, civilised  society  would  cease  to  exist.  There  is  no 
more  reason  in  land  than  in  anything  else  for  calling  on  the 
legal  owner  to  show  that  he  has  personally  paid  the  value 
expended  in  making  the  article,  be  the  article  coat  or  farm. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  very  large  part  of  the  soil  of  England 
has  been  acquired  for  value  given  within  recent  generations. 

Even  the  estates  of  our  peers,  whose  Norman  names 
excite  Mr.  George's  democratic  sensibilities,  have  usually 
been  acquired,  directly  or  indirectly,  through  purchases  by 
capitaHsts  or  marriage  with  the  children  of  capitahsts.  It 
was  amusing  to  read  Mr.  George's  denunciations  of  the 
London  estate  of  the  Duke  of  Westminster,  which  he  told 
us  was  a  grant  from  a  Norman  king.  Everybody  knows 
that  it  comes  by  inheritance  from  a  worthy  yeoman,  who 
farmed  his  own  estate,  and  left  it  in  due  course  to  his  grand- 
child. The  grandchild's  descendant  about  a  hundred  years 
ago  obtained  a  title.  But  the  right  of  the  Duke  to  the  soil 
is  precisely  the  same  as  Mr.  George's  right  to  anything 
which  was  left  to  him  by  his  grandfather.  There  are  no 
Norman  kings  in  America,  and  no  land-laws  made  by  an 
aristocracy.  And  yet  precisely  the  same  evils  of  land 
monopoly  exist  there,  we  are  told,  and  the  same  policy  of 
confiscation  is  recommended. 

Who  are  the  people  of  England  to  whom  God  gave  the 
soil?  Are  they  the  descendants  of  the  aborigines,  of  the 
first  occupants,  of  the  Britons,  Saxons,  or  the  mediaeval 
yeomen?  Have  not  the  Welsh,  the  men  of  Cornwall,  the 
Highlands,  and  the  West  of  Ireland  the  best  title  to  the  soil 
of  their  ancestors?     And  in  America   God  certainly  gave 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  389 

the  soil  to  the  red-skin;  and  by  the  law  of  divine  justice 
one  would  think  that  New  York,  Boston,  and  Chicago  should 
be  restored  to  the  remnant  still  left  in  the  Indian  reserves. 
Absurd  panaceas  can  only  be  properly  exposed  by  pointing 
out  the  absurd  consequences  which  logically  they  involve. 

Not  only  does  the  owner  of  a  farm  represent  those  who 
have  expended  capital  in  creating  it,  but  the  farm  would 
soon  cease  to  exist  if  the  owner  did  not  continue  to  expend 
capital  in  keeping  it  going.  Next  to  the  fallacy  that  the 
landlord  has  done  nothing  to  make  the  land,  comes  the 
fallacy  that  he  does  nothing  to  maintain  it.  An  ordinary 
estate  requires  periodical  expenditure,  amounting  at  the 
lowest  to  ID  per  cent  of  the  rental,  often  twice,  thrice,  or 
four  times  as  much.  Official  reports  from  one  of  the  great 
estates  in  the  kingdom  show  that  in  sixteen  years  nearly 
three-quarters  of  a  million  sterling  has  been  expended. 
Of  late  years  much  of  this  outlay  has  been  incurred  along 
with  a  reduction  of  rents.  It  may  well  be  that  much  of 
this  expenditure  is  in  permanent  improvements  which  will 
ultimately  represent  increased  value.  But  in  England  an 
immense  proportion  of  this  expenditure  has  nothing  to  do 
with  profit  or  speculation.  It  is  voluntarily  made  by  the 
duty  or  pride  of  ownership,  just  as  parks  and  gardens  are 
kept  up  without  any  view  to  profit. 

Farmhouses,  farm  buildings,  cottages,  schools,  churches, 
clearings,  plantations,  and  model  farms  are  placed  on  the 
soil  by  rich  landlords  out  of  their  capital.  The  country 
gains  largely  by  this;  and  the  reason  that  so  many  parts 
of  England  are  cultivated  hke  gardens  or  home  farms  is 
that  the  owners,  having  immense  capital  from  resources 
other  than  agricultural  rents,  are  able  to  indulge  their  pride 
or  their  sense  of  duty  by  expending  enormous  sums  in  improv- 
ing and  beautifying  their  estates.     One  landlord  in  i6  years 


390 


NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 


spent  in  farms,  cottages,  etc.,  ;^29o,ooo.  Another,  in  3 
years,  ;^6o,ooo.  Another,  in  17  years,  £30,000  (rental  re- 
duced). Another  has,  in  10  years,  received  ;^5o,ooo,  out 
of  which  he  spent  on  the  land  ;^43,ooo  without  increased 
rental.  These  improvements  are  all  in  country  estates, 
and  in  different  counties.*  Instead  of  the  great  peers  carry- 
ing off  the  rentals  of  their  farms  to  be  consumed  in  extrava- 
gance, the  farms  are  often  kept  in  their  present  high  condi- 
tion because  vast  sums  acquired  elsewhere  are  poured  into 
them.  I  am  certainly  not  prepared  to  utter  one  word  in 
defence  either  of  our  landed  system  or  of  our  concentration 
of  land  in  a  few  hands,  least  of  all  in  defence  of  the  unsocial 
extravagance  of  the  rich.  But  on  the  whole  I  believe  that 
great  landlords  in  England  administer  their  estates  with 
more  sense  of  public  duty  than  bankers  or  merchants  em- 
ploy their  capital. 

On  the  whole  I  estimate  that  an  annual  sum  of  at  least 
ten  millions  is  needed  to  keep  our  agricultural  land  at  a 
high  level  of  condition,  in  building,  draining,  fencing,  clear- 
ing, planting,  in  roads,  dykes,  watercourses,  bridges,  and 
so  forth.  In  a  country  changing  so  rapidly  as  ours,  and 
with  daily  advances  in  scientific  farming,  this  outlay  is 
required  to  keep  abreast  of  the  general  progress.  Were 
this  not  expended  the  fertility  of  the  land  would  rapidly 

1  These  cases  have  been  given  to  me  privately,  and  in  each  case  with 
exact  figures  supplied  from  the  agent's  office.  They  belong  to  a  large 
class  of  English  properties  which  are  owned  by  men  of  great  wealth  and 
managed  on  liberal  principles,  without  any  idea  of  exacting  the  maximum 
rental.  Thev  are  not  at  all  the  strongest  cases  to  be  found.  The  entire 
rental  of  some  large  estates  is  expended  on  the  property.  I  know  rnyself 
of  two  properties  owned  by  millionaires,  one  of  £13,000,  the  other  £4000 
a  year,  from  which  for  years  past  no  income  has  been  taken  off  the  land. 
I  cite  these  cases  not  to  claim  any  merit  for  the  owners,  nor  as  a  defence 
of  the  landlord  svstem,  but  to  prove  a  plain  economic  fact,  viz.,  that  a  large 
proportion  of  the  estates  in  England  are  managed  without  any  reference 
to  pecuniary  profit,  and  that  immense  sums  are,  as  a  fact,  annually  spent 
in  improving  the  land  by  the  owners.  The  question  whence  that  money 
comes  is  a  perfectly  distinct  issue. 


SOCIAL  REMEDIES  391 

deteriorate  and  ultimately  cease  altogether.  Any  large 
tract  of  ordinary  country  left  to  itself  for  a  generation  would 
return  to  a  state  of  nature,  and  in  two  or  three  generations  it 
would  be  as  uncultivable  and  as  uninhabitable  as  the  moor 
or  the  fen  of  our  ancestors.  An  ordinary  estate  requires 
a  continual  expenditure  of  capital  to  keep  it  going,  just  as 
a  ship,  or  a  railway,  or  a  cotton-mill. 

The  sole  justification  of  ownership  of  the  soil  is  that  this 
is  done  by  the  owner.  In  England  it  is  done  by  the  owner, 
and,  on  the  whole,  done  well.  It  is  well  done  mainly  be- 
cause the  soil  of  England  is  owned  by  men,  very  many  of 
whom  are  rich  apart  from  their  rentals  from  farms.  If  an 
annual  outlay  of  ten  millions  be  taken  (for  illustration)  as 
the  amount  required  to  keep  our  agricultural  land  in  a  high 
state  of  productiveness,  I  shall  assume  that  no  less  than 
fifteen  millions  are  annually  expended  on  it  now,  if  we  in- 
clude every  kind  of  outlay  —  churches,  schools,  cottages, 
model  farms,  houses,  gardens,  plantations,  of  every  kind: 
in  fact,  all  that  is  not  accomplished  by  public  taxation. 

Where  is  this  ten  or  fifteen  millions  annually  to  come 
from  if  the  state  confiscates  the  soil?  To  throw  it  on  the 
occupant  or  farmer  is  to  overburden  him,  already  unable 
as  he  is  to  stock  or  work  his  farm  from  want  of  capital.  He 
will  have,  as  now,  to  pay  his  rent  or  land  tax  to  the  state. 
Otherwise  the  state  will  derive  no  benefit  from  confiscation, 
and  will  simply  make  a  present  of  the  land  to  the  farmers. 
But  if  the  farmer,  besides  paying  his  rent,  is  to  find  the  annual 
outlay  for  repairs  and  improvements,  none  but  capitalists, 
or  the  nominees  of  capitalists,  will  be  able  to  farm.  Hence, 
the  ten  or  fifteen  millions  must  come  either  from  the  state 
or  from  land  banks.  If  from  the  state,  then  a  large  slice 
of  the  state's  new  land  tax  will  be  cut  off.  And  what  a 
prospect    of    state   intervention,   jobbery,   and   mismanage- 


392  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

merit  is  unfolded  by  a  scheme  which  puts  every  farm  under 
the  direct  management  of  the  state;  which  substitutes  for 
all  the  land  agents  and  landlords  in  England  a  huge  depart- 
ment at  Whitehall  which  would  have  to  give  an  order  before 
any  gate,  barn,  or  ditch  in  the  kingdom  could  be  repaired. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  the  difficulty  is  met  by  leasing 
the  state  land  at  a  lower  rate.  This  does  not  meet  the  case. 
In  the  first  place,  the  state  will  have  to  see  that  the  sums 
required  for  improvements  are  actually  expended.  That 
would  involve  minute  and  constant  inspection,  followed  by 
eviction  in  case  of  default.  What  an  endless  source  of  dis- 
content such  a  system  involves !  Again,  a  large  part  of  the 
expenditure  now  made  by  great  landlords  is  far  in  excess 
of  what  a  public  department  could  or  would  exact  from 
farmers  with  small  capital.  Yet  if  that  expenditure  is  sacri- 
ficed the  country,  at  any  rate  the  land,  would  be  the  loser. 
Lastly,  a  large,  irregular,  and  occasional  expenditure,  which 
is  easily  borne  by  a  great  capitalist,  is  not  so  readily  met  by 
a  farmer  without  capital.  A  farmer,  now  paying  ;^2oo  a 
year  rental,  needs,  we  may  suppose,  a  new  house,  buildings, 
and  appurtenances,  to  cost  ;i(^2ooo.  A  landlord  easily  finds 
that  sum.  It  is  a  very  different  thing  to  call  on  the  farmer 
to  find  it,  even  if  his  rent  be  reduced  from  ;;^2oo  to  ;^ioo  per 
annum.  The  seamen  who  navigate  an  ocean  steamer  could 
not  find  the  capital  to  work  it,  even  if  their  wages  were  £^^^0 
a  year. 

Suppose,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  state  declines  so 
gigantic  and  so  unpopular  a  task,  and  that  the  ten  or  fifteen 
millions  are  found  by  financial  corporations  —  land  banks 
of  some  kind.  That  is  to  institute  a  vast  system  of  mortgage 
over  the  face  of  our  country.  Mortgages  are  bad  enough 
when  created  by  a  landlord;  they  are  far  more  ruinous 
when  the  farmer  or  peasant  is  indebted.     The  state  would 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  393 

be  the  mere  over-lord,  receiving  the  true  rent  under  the 
name  of  land  tax,  as  in  India  or  Egypt ;  and  the  cultivator 
—  call  him  peasant,  farmer,  or  lessee  —  would  be  the  bond- 
slave of  some  money-dealer,  who  would  be  his  mortgagee 
and  practical  master.  The  place  of  landlord  would  be 
taken  by  some  banking  company  in  London. 

This  is  what  happens  always  where  the  cultivator  is  with- 
out capital,  and  yet  where  he  has  himself  to  find  the  sums 
periodically  needed  to  keep  his  land  in  condition.  This 
is  why  the  Egyptian  fellah,  the  Indian  ryot,  the  peasant  in 
Russia  and  Eastern  Europe  generally,  is  the  bond-slave 
of  the  money-lender.  Even  in  France,  Belgium,  or  America, 
where  the  peasant  has  unusual  qualities  of  industry  and 
thrift,  the  poorer  class  of  farmers  are  bowed  down  by  mort- 
gages and  loans.  How  could  it  be  otherwise?  No  magic 
will  get  rid  of  the  need  for  constant  outlay  to  keep  the  land 
in  condition ;  nor  will  any  magic  supply  the  small  farmer  — 
call  him  what  you  will  —  with  the  capital  needed.  At 
present  he  can  hardly  buy  his  stock  and  implements.  How 
is  he  to  find,  then,  ten  or  fifteen  millions  more,  if  we  abolish 
the  landowner,  who  now  finds  this  sum?  He  can  only  find 
it  by  borrowing ;  and  the  lender  will  be  more  or  less  master 
of  him  and  of  his  land. 

Suppose  that,  by  a  short  Act  of  Parliament,  the  payment 
of  rent  were  abolished,  within  a  generation  the  present  farm- 
ers, who,  as  a  rule,  have  neither  large  capital,  nor  the  habit 
of  accumulating  a  large  capital,  would  be  deeply  in  debt 
for  the  sums  required  to  renew  buildings  and  develop  culti- 
vation. Where  there  is  need  for  continual  outlay  of  capital, 
borrowing  is  the  only  means  by  which  a  class  without  capital 
can  meet  that  outlay,  however  easy  be  the  terms  on  which 
the  holders  may  get  the  land.  The  land  question  is  a  ques- 
tion of  capital.     No  legislation  can  create  capital  where  it 


394  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

does  not  exist,  and  where  the  habit  of  accumulating  does 
not  exist.  But  the  nationalisation  scheme  does  not  pretend 
to  abolish  rent.  It  only  converts  rent  into  land-tax;  that 
is,  it  changes  the  persons  to  whom  rent  is  payable.  The 
landowner  system  is  a  device  for  getting  capital  on  to  the 
land.  If  we  abolish  the  landowner,  then,  as  the  farmer  has 
not  adequate  capital,  it  must  come  either  from  the  state 
or  from  lenders. 

The  English  schools  of  land  nationalisation  usually  pro- 
claim as  their  aim  the  formation  of  a  number  of  small  farms 
leased  from  the  state,  with  fixity  of  tenure  —  in  fact,  the 
legislative  creation  of  a  system  of  permanent  peasant  occu- 
pation. There  are  great  social  advantages  in  peasant  pro- 
prietorship, and  in  any  system  where  the  actual  cultivator  is 
in  free  possession  of  the  soil  he  tills.  I  am  wholly  convinced 
that  to  occupying  ownership,  without  legal  limitation  on 
the  extent  of  the  holding,  we  must  ultimately  come.  But 
the  questions  before  us  are  these :  First,  can  we  create  such 
a  system  at  a  stroke  by  legislative  compulsion?  Secondly, 
in  order  to  do  so,  need  we  start  with  such  a  tremendous 
revolution  as  abolishing  property  in  land?  Thirdly,  when 
we  had  done  it,  would  the  advantages  (apart  from  the  dan- 
gers and  evils)  be  at  all  commensurate?  To  these  three 
questions  I  answer.  No ! 

If  every  rural  labourer  in  England  were  suddenly  by  law 
declared  the  absolute  owner  of  ten  acres,  other  conditions 
remaining  unchanged,  within  a  few  years  the  productiveness 
of  the  soil  would  be  reduced  by  one-half,  and  in  a  few  genera- 
tions large  properties  would  be  again  the  rule,  and  the  bulk 
of  the  labourers  would  be  in  a  state  of  dependence.  It  is 
impossible,  in  a  country  like  ours,  to  force  society  back  into 
the  primitive  simplicity  of  Switzerland  and  Norway,  even 
if  it  were  desirable.    It  is  useless  to  make  peasant  proprie- 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  395 

tors  or  independent  farmers  by  law,  until  both  have  the 
habits  and  the  capital  needed  to  work  such  farms  or  holdings 
to  a  profit.  Then,  when  we  had  "planted  our  people  on 
the  land,"  we  should  at  most  have  provided  for  one  million 
of  earners  out  of  our  twelve  millions  of  earners,  for  if  the 
holdings  were  too  small,  production  would  be  arrested. 
How  should  we  have  improved  the  condition  of  the  other 
eleven  millions  of  earners?  To  hope  that  we  should  have 
abolished  wages,  even  in  agriculture,  is  an  illusion.  There 
is  not  a  country  in  the  world  where  the  wage-receivers  do 
not  exceed  the  proprietors  tilling  their  own  land.  And  in 
a  system  of  peasant  ownership  the  wage-receivers  are  often 
worse  off  than  elsewhere. 

If  our  soil  is  to  be  well  cultivated,  the  lots  —  call  them 
farms,  properties,  or  holdings  —  could  not,  at  the  outside, 
exceed  a  million,  and  would  probably  be  quite  small  enough 
if  they  amounted  to  half  or  a  quarter  of  a  million.  If  these 
lots  are  to  be  well  tilled,  some  one  must  have  full  control 
over  each,  call  him  peasant,  farmer,  owner,  lessee,  or  occu- 
pant. Unless  such  occupant  has  permanent  tenure,  with 
full  power  to  transmit  to  his  assigns  and  successors,  he  will 
not  put  capital  into  the  land.  Unless  he  has  capital  of  his 
own  he  must  borrow  it.  When  he  is  a  systematic  borrower 
he  will  cease  to  be  a  free  proprietor.  And  when  financial 
rmgs  hold  under  mortgages  the  soil  of  England,  we  shall 
simply  have  established  for  the  landlords  whom  we  see, 
and  who  (in  England)  live  on  their  estates  and  usually  take 
some  pride  in  them,  invisible  money-dealers  living  in  dis- 
tant cities.  What  is  there  in  all  this  to  transform  industry, 
reorganise  our  social  system,  and  offer  a  millennium  to  the 
thirty-five  millions  of  these  islands? 

Our  English  schools  of  land  nationalisation  adopt  the 
principle  merely  in  name.     Mr.  George  proposes  a  genuine 


396  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

Communism,  so  far  as  land  is  concerned.  If  his  scheme  is 
to  have  the  grand  social  results  which  he  claims,  he  must 
abolish  all  property  in  the  soil  as  an  institution.  It  is,  ac- 
cording to  him,  from  the  sinful  institution  whereby  plots 
of  God's  earth  are  nefariously  allotted  to  private  persons  in 
full  control  that  poverty,  bad  trade,  rotten  finance,  injustice, 
fraud,  and  even  prostitution,  spring.  But  the  practical 
result  of  our  English  land  nationalisation  movement  is,  not 
to  abolish,  but  gready  to  strengthen  this  malignant  institu- 
tion, the  appropriation  of  the  soil.  The  English  schools 
seek  to  make  many  more  persons  the  virtual  masters  of  the 
soil.  Nationalisation,  in  their  mouths,  is  reduced  to  a  phrase. 
The  state  is  to  be  declared  sole  proprietor.  Well,  that  is 
nothing;  such  is  now  the  law  of  the  land,  a  law  acted  on 
daily,  when  land  is  taken  under  the  compulsory  powers  of  a 
thousand  Acts  of  Parliament.  But  names  apart,  the  new 
allottees  of  the  farms  or  plots  will  be  quite  as  much  proprie- 
tors, in  the  anti-social  sense  of  the  term,  as  the  Norman 
barons  who  now  own  them. 

Unless  the  allottees  have  permanent  occupation,  with 
fixity  of  tenure,  and  freedom  to  transfer,  charge,  and  devise 
them,  the  land  cannot  be  properly  worked.  Some  persons 
or  other,  by  a  law  of  nature,  physical  nature  and  human 
nature  alike,  must  have  full  control  over  the  soil,  unless  it 
is  to  waste  and  go  to  ruin  as  land  does  in  Turkey  or  Persia. 
But  permanent  occupation,  with  fixity  of  tenure  and  free- 
dom of  assignment,  is  proprietorship  in  other  words.  It 
will  exercise  over  society  all  the  same  effects.  The  new 
allottees  will  accumulate  estates,  and  in  a  few  generations 
will  be  just  as  selfish,  tyrannical,  and  indolent  as  the  Norman 
barons.  They  will  be  just  as  much  the  enemies  of  the 
human  race.  Why  not?  We  shall  have  changed  the  per- 
sons of  the  proprietors;  but  how  shall  we  have  changed  the 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  397 

proprietor  nature  ?  Instead  of  Lord  Wolverton,  a  London 
banker,  or  Lord  Ardilaun,  a  Dublin  brewer,  who  care  little 
for  the  rentals  of  farms,  we  should  have  got  a  dozen  small 
capitalists  who  had  saved  money  in  iron,  and  a  dozen  more 
who  had  prospered  in  coal,  butter,  or  mutton,  and  who  are 
not  likely  to  be  easier  landlords/ 

In  what  I  have  said  I  do  not  by  one  word  accept  the  actual 
land  system  as  satisfactory,  or  our  present  social  condition 
as  tolerable.  I  am  as  eager  as  any  Socialist  to  transform 
our  landlordism  as  a  permanent  institution  and  to  find  a 
higher  standard  for  our  general  industrial  life.  I  see  certain 
great  advantages,  chiefly  economical  and  material,  in  our 
present  system  of  landed  estates;  but  I  am  very  far  from 
believing  that  these  counterbalance  its  grave  social  evils. 
But  these  are  to  be  dealt  with,  I  hold,  by  the  class  of  measures 
long  advocated  by  all  schools  of  radical  land  reformers. 
I  am  as  anxious  as  any  man  to  see  a  large  body  of  peasant 
holdings  freely  springing  up  on  our  land.  I  look  for  a  large 
body  of  working  farmers,  with  permanent  interest  and  com- 
plete freedom  in  their  own  farms.  And  I  see  social  and 
moral  evils  of  the  w^orst  kind  in  any  system  which  practically 
severs  (as  ours  does)  the  ownership  of  the  soil  from  any 
responsibility  to  superintend  its  cultivation.  That  is  to  say, 
there  are  grave  evils  to  society  where  estates  in  the  mass 
are  simply  leased  or  loaned  for  hire  like  money.  These 
evils,  however,  can  be  remedied  by  a  reform  of  the  land 
laws,  by  abolishing  all  the  legal  and  social  privileges  peculiar 

'In  Professor  Newman's  paper,  "written  on  behalf  of  the  Land  Na- 
tionalisation Society,"  he  says:  "The  aim  of  our  society  is  to  establish 
a  state  of  things  in  which  small  independent  plots  of  land  shall  be  procurable 
everywhere."  As  the  aim  to  be  reached,  he  speaks  of  farms  "being  multi- 
plied through  peasant  freeholds."  Now  to  maintain  such  a  system  in 
England,  even  if  it  could  be  created  by  law,  two  things  are  absolutely  neces- 
sary—  (i)  limitation  by  law  of  the  size  of  holdings,  (2)  prohibition  against 
sub-letting.  Both  of  these  conditions  are  impossible.  To  attempt  them 
would  lead  to  an  unendurable  tyranny. 


398  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

to  the  ownership  of  land,  and  by  a  resolute  scheme  of  land 
taxation. 

Under  such  a  system  of  reform  it  would  simply  not  pay 
to  be  the  nominal  owner  of  a  great  estate.  A  great  estate 
would  become  a  mere  burden,  and  not  a  very  honourable 
one,  except  where  a  man  of  vast  wealth  might  choose  to 
devote  a  large  part  of  it  to  the  public  service,  by  keeping 
up  an  estate  without  profit.  However,  after  all  the  changes, 
I  am  not  sure  that  the  tillers  of  the  soil  will  be,  in  material 
conditions,  quite  as  well  off  as  many  are  now  who  hold  under 
the  great  Bedford,  Devonshire,  Portland,  Buccleuch,  and 
Northumberland  estates.  But,  on  the  whole,  the  social 
objections  to  the  maintenance  of  an  indebted,  idle,  and 
exclusive  squirearchy  are  so  serious,  that  we  should  by  every 
legal  obstacle  limit  the  formation  of  a  landlord  class  whose 
social  function  is  sport,  and  whose  economic  function  is  to 
spend  what  rent  remains  after  keeping  the  estate  in  produc- 
tive efficiency.  Economically  speaking,  there  is  some  social 
justification  for  dukes  and  millionaires  as  landlords,  for 
they  sometimes  put  almost  as  much  on  to  the  land  as  they 
draw  off,  and  they  offer  types  of  high  agricultural  efficiency. 
It  is  the  squireen,  with  one  or  two  thousand  acres,  with  no 
capital,  no  occupation,  and  few  useful  faculties,  who  is  with- 
out any  raison  d'etre;  being,  like  his  own  cherished  fox, 
a  survival  of  the  unfittest  in  modern  civilisation. 

In  what  I  have  said  I  strictly  limit  myself  to  England, 
and  to  rural  estates.  If  the  system  cannot  be  applied  to 
English  farms  it  fails  altogether.  The  social  and  economical 
conditions  of  the  greater  part  of  Ireland,  and  even  of  Scot- 
land, are  so  very  different;  the  social  justification  of  the 
landlord  there  is  so  rnuch  less  even  when  it  exists  at  all, 
that  very  different  reasoning  applies  to  the  ill-managed 
territories  of  so  many  Irish  and  Scotch  absentee  landlords. 


SOCIAL  REMEDIES  399 

I  also  have  been  speaking  exclusively  of  the  soil  in  country, 
not  in  cities.  I  am  quite  prepared  to  see  the  state,  through 
local  authorities,  assert  in  towns  a  permanent  right  to  control 
the  disposition  of  the  soil  in  such  ways  as  experience  shall 
prove  to  be  most  useful  to  the  public.  Abstract  rights  of 
property  should  no  more  be  an  obstacle  to  laying  out  our 
cities  as  health  and  convenience  suggest,  than  they  are  now 
in  making  a  railway  through  an  estate.  What  we  want 
are  a  set  of  Lands  Clauses  Acts  applying  to  any  soil  in  towns, 
and  vesting  control  over  it  in  proper  local  authorities.  And 
we  shall  want  very  stringent  provisions  to  check  owners 
from  doing  anything  contrary  to  public  interests,  or  from 
receiving  fanciful  compensation  for  their  own  laches  and 
obstruction. 

Even  then  we  ought  to  see  more  wisdom  and  honesty  in 
local  authorities  before  we  can  confidently  entrust  to  them 
the  work  now  done  for  the  most  part  by  great  landowners. 
The  municipalities  of  Paris,  New  York,  San  Francisco,  or 
Melbourne  are  not  model  trustees  of  public  interests;  some 
think  that  even  the  Corporation  of  London  and  the  Metro- 
politan Board  of  Works  are  far  from  all  that  is  wanted.  Is 
it  quite  certain  that  either  of  them  would  abolish  misery 
and  unhealthy  dwellings  the  moment  we  had  handed  over 
to  them  the  control  of  the  Bedford,  Salisbury,  Portland, 
Portman,  Grosvenor,  and  Cadogan  estates?  We  may  take 
it  at  least  as  certain  that  in  the  management  of  these  neither 
fraud  nor  oppression  is  directly  charged  against  the  noble 
owners,  other  than  such  fraud  and  oppression  as  Mr.  George 
finds  in  the  act  of  owning  land  at  all.  To  a  citizen  of  Paris, 
New  York,  or  San  Francisco,  accustomed  to  associate  mu- 
nicipal government  with  bribery,  rings,  corners,  and  public 
plunder,  such  a  state  of  things  would  appear  an  impossible 
Utopia.     Every  one  who  knows  London  can  see  how  un- 


4CX3  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

founded  and  even  ludicrous  are  invectives  against  the  peers 
who  own  considerable  districts  in  our  city.  Large  as  these 
estates  are,  they  do  not  account  for  a  quarter  of  the  area  or 
the  population.  So  far  from  these  being  the  districts  where 
suffering  is  greatest,  they  are  altogether  those  in  which 
it  is  least.  The  central,  eastern,  northern,  and  southern 
districts  of  London,  where  the  dukes  do  not  own  a  house, 
are  those  where  the  misery  and  overcrowding  are  the  worst. 

Misery  and  overcrowding  as  great,  if  not  greater,  are 
found  in  Paris,  Berlin,  Naples,  Lyons,  Rouen,  New  York, 
and  Melbourne,  where  there  are  no  Norman  barons,  no 
dukes  owning  whole  quarters.  Everybody  knows  that  Mr. 
George's  famous  gates  near  Euston  Square  were  set  up  for 
the  convenience,  not  of  the  duke,  but  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  quarter.  They  are  doubtless  a  public  nuisance,  but  if 
the  soil  belonged  to  the  parish  we  might  have  a  dozen  more 
set  up.  This  is  a  specimen  of  the  rhetoric  to  which  Mr. 
George  treats  us.  Happily  our  English  reformers  do  not 
adopt  this  outlandish  style  of  reform.  I  am  certainly  no 
friend  of  landlordism  as  an  institution,  or  of  aristocratic 
social  traditions ;  I  am  for  radical  land  reform  both  in  town 
and  country;  but  justice  forces  me  to  say,  that  amongst 
our  great  landowners,  both  in  town  and  country,  are  to  be 
found  those  men  who,  of  all  the  rich  and  powerful  in  England, 
I  will  say  of  all  the  rich  and  powerful  in  Europe,  administer 
their  estates  with  the  greatest  sense  of  social  duty  and  respon- 
sibility to  public  opinion.  And  when  we  have  got  rid  of 
them,  we  shall  have  got  rid  of  much  that  it  will  take  us  a 
long  time  to  replace. 

On  the  whole,  whilst  we  must  thank  the  Land  Nationali- 
sation movement  for  directing  attention  to  many  important 
truths,  and  whilst  we  may  heartily  go  along  with  the  spirit 
which  inspires  it,  we  cannot  accept  the  chimerical  hopes 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  40I 

and  the  blind  leap  in  the  dark  which  it  offers  us  as  a  remedy 
for  all  industrial  evils.  We  should  sacrifice  for  a  mere 
dream  all  the  solid  results  won  by  radical  reform  and  prac- 
tical experiments;  for  it  would  plunge  us  into  a  social  revo- 
lution which  might  last  for  generations.  The  talk  about 
"planting  the  English  people  on  the  soil"  is  surely  mere 
words.  However  successful  the  plan,  it  could  only  plant 
about  one  in  ten  of  our  families  on  the  soil.  The  twenty-six 
millions  of  Englishmen  cannot  all  be  planted  on  the  soil; 
they  are  not  Swiss  or  Norwegian  woodcutters,  nor  are  they 
all  desirous  of  retiring  to  the  country  on  a  competence.  And 
when  they  were  planted  on  the  soil,  how  would  they  live 
and  earn  a  living  if  they  have  neither  capital  nor  skill  to 
work  it?  V/e  might  as  well  talk  of  planting  the  English 
people  in  the  shops,  or  warehouses,  or  offices  of  England. 
What  would  they  do  when  they  got  into  the  offices  and  shops 
without  capital  or  business  habits?  A  tailor  presented 
with  a  cottage  and  ten  acres  would  starve  as  quickly  as  a 
farmer  would  starve  if  presented  with  a  lawyer's  business 
as  a  going  concern.  There  are  now  thousands  of  farms 
"on  hand"  because,  rent  or  no  rent,  there  is  no  one  with 
capital  and  skill  who  cares  to  take  them. 

Of  the  state  management  of  capital,  i.e.  of  simple  Com- 
munism, I  say  little  now.  We  have  not  before  us  a  definite 
statement  of  the  views  propounded  by  any  systematie  school 
of  Communism.  There  are  several  organised  bodies  putting 
forward  proposals  of  a  more  or  less  Communistic  character ; 
and  within  our  generation  we  have  seen  several  Socialist 
movements  of  a  more  or  less  systematic  kind.  In  what  I 
say  now  I  speak  of  no  body  in  particular.  I  shall  deal  with 
the  Socialist  and  Communist  language  which  is  to  be  heard 
nowadays  in  several  quarters,  both  within  and  without  the 
publicly-constituted  bodies.     There  is  not  a  little  floating 

2  D 


402  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

Socialism  current  around  us.  I  neither  fear  nor  despise 
Communism.  I  am  anything  but  opposed  to  its  motive 
spirit  or  its  aspirations.  I  honour  its  generous  instincts, 
and  I  sympathise  with  much  in  its  social  aims ;  for  undoubt- 
edly some  of  the  noblest  characters  of  our  day  are  in  sym- 
pathy with  them,  and  it  counts  in  its  ranks  men  of  heroic 
devotion  to  a  social  ideal.  Nor  need  we  undervalue  its 
forces  and  the  future  destiny  before  it. 

On  the  continent  of  Europe  it  is  already  one  of  the  mighty 
factors  of  social  evolution.  We  shall  have  it  here,  I  doubt 
not;  though  hardly  in  any  form  that  is  yet  presented  to  us 
But  in  what  form,  in  what  system,  with  what  doctrines, 
is  Communism  presented  to  Englishmen  to-day?  The 
Communism  which  alone  has  ever  had  a  serious  following 
—  the  Communism  of  Owen,  Fourier,  Saint-Simon,  Lassaell, 
and  Karl  Marx  —  had  a  social  system  of  some  kind,  a  body 
of  logical  doctrines,  and  an  ideal  of  human  society,  however 
vague  and  extravagant.  But  the  Socialism  in  many  quar- 
ters now  preached  amongst  us  has  none  of  these  —  neither 
economical  theory,  nor  social  scheme,  nor  system  of  life  of 
of  any  kind.  It  offers  nothing  but  invectives  against  the 
rich,  fancy  figures  for  its  statistics,  and  appeals  to  the  poor 
to  begin  a  social  insurrection.  It  has  no  economic,  social, 
or  political  doctrines.  It  propounds  no  intelligible  religious 
principle  —  no  scheme  of  morality,  of  government,  of  insti- 
tutions, of  education,  of  domestic,  industrial,  or  civic  life. 

Now  no  real  insurrection  was  ever  made  by  pure  anar- 
chists. The  people  must  have  something  to  believe  in,  to 
hope  for,  and  work  for,  before  they  will  seriously  rise.  In- 
citements to  plunder  and  to  destroy  do  not  touch  the  people, 
who  need  some  great  moral  cause  and  some  ideal  in  view 
to  stir  them  profoundly.  But  Communism,  as  presented 
in  England,  offers  no  moral  cause,  no  ideal.     It  has  never 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  4^3 

faced,  and  has  nothing  to  say  about  any  one  of  the  great 
social  problems,  about  religion,  morality,  education,  gov- 
ernment, public  or  domestic  duty.  It  is  not  Communism: 
it  is  mere  Nihilism.  Communism  implies  the  systematic 
organisation  of  life  on  the  principle  of  community  and  not 
of  individualism.  This  Nihilism,  which  pretends  to  be 
Communism,  simply  proposes  the  confiscation  of  property. 
How  the  capital  so  confiscated  is  to  be  worked  —  under 
what  moral  code,  by  what  institutions,  and  for  what  social 
aim  —  on  this  it  has  nothing  to  say. 

How  can  it  have?  The  small  knots  of  propagandists 
whom  we  find  here  and  there  —  some  of  them  in  organised 
societies,  some  in  the  press,  the  pulpit,  or  on  platforms  — 
seem  to  have  no  agreement  about  these  things.  Some  are 
ministers  of  the  Gospel ;  some  profess  materialism  pure  and 
simple;  others  belong  to  every  intermediate  phase  of  opin- 
ion. Their  views  about  morality,  education,  government, 
and  society  are  equally  various.  Now,  although  an  economist 
is  not  bound,  as  such,  to  have  any  moral,  religious,  or  edu- 
cational programme,  a  Communist  is  bound;  for  if  people 
are  to  work  in  common  they  must  be  trained  in  common. 
Every  serious  Socialist  or  Comm^unist  school  has  provided 
for  this.  The  interesting  part  about  true  Communism  is 
that  it  so  fully  realises  the  impossibility  of  production  on  a 
Communistic  basis  without  a  complete  set  of  institutions  to 
mould  life  generally  on  a  corresponding  basis. 

All  true  Communists  have  seen  that  it  is  impossible  to 
found  a  Communistic  mode  of  industry  without  destroying 
private  life.  Hence  they  begin  by  attempting  to  found  a 
set  of  social,  family,  and  religious  institutions  to  eradicate 
all  traces  of  individualism.  If  they  do  not  do  this  they  know 
that  Communism  in  labour  is  impossible.  But  the  various 
groups  who  in  England  to-day  advocate  some  vague  Com- 


404  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

munistic  proposals  do  none  of  these  things.  They  may 
denounce  our  social  sores,  they  may  call  every  man  who 
does  not  agree  with  them  mere  bourgeois  (to  these  young 
gentlemen  even  trades-unionists  and  co-operators  are  ali 
bourgeois  —  the  real  English  workman  does  not  even  knov/ 
the  word  bourgeois) ;  but,  in  the  absence  of  any  social  scheme, 
they  will  not  penetrate  the  body  of  English  workmen. 

Communism  in  a  systematic  form  is,  perhaps,  not  advo- 
cated amongst  us.  But  Communistic  proposals  and  Social- 
ist schemes  have  little  meaning  unless  they  can  be  placed 
on  a  logical  footing.  The  only  Communism  which  is  worth 
serious  notice  is  that  complete  Communism  which  seeks  to 
transform  all  private  property  into  Collectivism,  or  common 
property.  It  would  be  strange  if  English  workmen,  who 
have  laboured  so  long  and  sacrificed  so  much  in  order  to 
share  with  their  fellows  some  of  that  security  and  indepen- 
dence which  the  legitimate  use  of  property  gives,  and  who 
have  organised  patiently  such  powerful  agencies  for  checking 
the  abuses  of  property,  were  suddenly  to  declare  for  universal 
confiscation  in  the  blind  chance  that  something  might  come 
of  it.  Trades  unions,  co-operative,  building,  land  societies, 
and  the  rest  would  all  disappear,  for  they  all  imply  the  in- 
stitution of  property. 

The  numerous  associations  of  which  we  have  here  the 
delegates  would  have  no  raison  d'etre.  There  would  be  no 
hope  of  a  plot  of  ground  for  the  countryman,  of  secure  tenure 
of  a  farm,  of  a  homestead  of  his  own  for  any  of  us.  There 
would  be  no  ''Union"  on  one  side  and  employer  on  the  other; 
no  personal  relation  between  any  capitalist  and  any  labourer 
or  any  farmer.  There  would  be  but  one  employer,  one 
capitalist,  one  proprietor,  one  general  manager  of  everything 
and  everybody.  That  one  would  be  the  state.  But  what  is 
the    state  in   any  intelligible  sense   as  sole  landlord,   sole 


SOCIAL   REMEDIES  405 

capitalist,  sole  manager?  The  state,  we  know,  collects  taxes 
and  manages  the  army  and  the  navy,  and  some  persons  are 
not  satisfied  with  the  way  that  these  trifles  are  managed. 
But  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  state,  the  possessions  of  which 
should  be  the  aggregate  capital  of  the  kingdom,  and  the 
spending  departments  of  which  would  have  to  pay  in  earnings 
alone  a  thousand  millions  a  year  to  twelve  millions  of  persons  ? 
And  on  what  principles,  by  what  institutions,  and  what 
machinery,  is  this  fabulous  task  to  be  accomplished  ?  As  no 
one  has  as  yet  given  us  any  intelligible  answer  to  this  prob- 
lem, it  will  be  wiser  to  adjourn  so  vast  a  question. 

From  all  that  I  have  said  it  will  appear  that,  whilst  I  hold 
as  strongly  as  any  man  that  our  industrial  system  is  socially 
unjust  and  unsound,  I  look  upon  none  of  the  industrial 
schemes  I  have  considered  as  going  to  the  roots  of  the  ques- 
tion.    Our  industrial  system  is  vicious,  because  our  moral, 
religious,  and  social  system  is  disorganised.     It  is  impossible 
to    regenerate    industry    until    we    also    regenerate    society. 
Trades   unions,   co-operation,   and   all   the   mutual   benefit 
movements  are  useful  in  their  way,  but  they  only  touch  the 
surface.     Land   confiscation  could  only  affect   a  minority, 
and  would  not  very  clearly  benefit  them.     Land  confiscation 
is  only  a  fragmentary  and  partial  kind  of  Communism ;  and 
Communism  itself,  as  we  hear  of  it  to-day,  is  only  a  more 
sweeping  confiscation,  and  a  fragmentary  and  partial  kind 
of  social  disorganisation.     Property  is  only  one  of   many 
social  institutions ;  and  industry  is  only  one  of  many  human 
duties.     To  make  property  a  little  more  common,  more  ac- 
cessible, to  check  some  abuses  of  property  here  and  there, 
may  be  exceedingly  useful  when  wisely  accomplished;    but 
it   cannot  in  itself  alter  human  nature,   life,   and   society. 
Even  to  abolish  property,  and  to  make  a  strict  code  for  in- 
dustry, is  only  to  get  rid  of  one  social  institution,  and  to 


4o6  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

regulate  one  of  many  human  duties.  To  expect  a  millen- 
nium from  any  kind  of  partial  remedy  is  like  giving  pills  to 
cure  a  fever.  Industry  can  only  be  regenerated  by  regenerat- 
ing society.  And  society  can  only  be  regenerated  by  sound 
religion,  true  morality,  right  education,  wise  institutions, 
and  good  government. 

The  root  of  the  matter  is  that  we  can  only  change  the 
general  conditions  of  industry  by  changing  the  spirit  in  which 
industry  is  carried  on;  and  we  can  only  gain  partial  and 
temporary  improvements  by  mending  this  or  that  industrial 
institution.  Whilst  men  as  a  rule  pursue  their  own  desires 
and  interests,  the  strongest  and  the  most  lucky  will  get  the 
best  of  it,  and  the  weak  and  the  unfortunate  will  be  cruelly 
used.  And  such  is  the  ingenuity  of  human  skill  and  the 
force  of  self-interest,  that,  alter  as  we  please  the  mechanical 
modes  in  which  industry  is  arranged,  the  strong  and  the  for- 
tunate soon  contrive  to  turn  them  to  their  own  advantage. 
The  best  proof  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  Mr.  George's  own 
books,  especially  in  his  last.  He  shows  us  that  the  indus- 
trial evils  he  denounces  grow  to  immense  proportions  where 
all  the  social  conditions  and  industrial  arrangements  are 
varied,  and  society  begins  with  a  mere  tabula  rasa.  Almost 
the  only  point  in  which  the  Pacific  territories  of  America 
originally  resembled  England  w^as  this,  that  the  passion  of 
self-interest  was  imperfectly  controlled  by  a  sense  of  social 
duty,  and  in  the  case  of  the  states  was  even  abnormally 
stimulated.  Here  then,  in  human  nature,  without  suffi- 
cient moral  control,  is  the  source  of  all  this  evil;  and  it  is 
melancholy  to  see  a  man  of  genius  labouring  by  a  set  of 
sophisms,  each  more  preposterous  than  the  last,  to  show  that 
its  source  is  in  property  in  land. 

If  the  cause  of  industrial  misery  be  traced  to  the  passion 
of  self-interest,  and  to  a  low  sense  of  social  duty,  there  might 


SOCIAL  REMEDIES  407 

seem  to  be  no  more  to  be  said.  We  should  have  to  wait  for 
a  general  improvement  in  civilisation.  But  there  is  more 
to  be  said.  Industry  has  managed  to  develop  a  moral  code 
of  its  own.  In  politics,  philosophy,  art,  or  manners,  in  do- 
mestic or  social  life,  self-interest  is  not  canonised  as  the  prin- 
cipal social  duty  of  man.  In  industry  it  is  otherwise.  For 
all  industrial  matters,  in  modern  Europe  and  America,  a 
moral  code  has  been  evolved,  which  makes  the  unlimited 
indulgence  of  self-interest,  pushed  to  the  very  verge  of  liabil- 
ity to  law,  the  supreme  social  duty  of  the  industrious  citizen. 
To  buy  cheap,  to  sell  dear,  to  exhaust  the  arts  of  competi- 
tion, to  undersell  rivals,  to  extend  business,  to  develop  trade, 
to  lend  on  the  best  security,  to  borrow  at  the  lowest  rate,  to 
introduce  every  novelty,  to  double  and  to  halve  business  at 
every  turn  of  the  market  —  in  a  word  to  create  the  biggest 
business  in  the  least  time,  and  to  accumulate  the  greatest 
wealth  with  the  smallest  capital  —  this  is  seriously  taught 
as  the  first  duty  of  trading  man. 

Economists,  politicians,  moralists,  and  even  preachers 
urge  on  the  enterprising  capitalist  that  the  industrialist  does 
best  his  duty  by  society  who  does  best  his  duty  by  himself. 
Banker,  merchant,  manufacturer,  proprietor,  tradesman, 
and  workman  alike  submit  to  this  strange  moral  law.  Al- 
most the  only  class  of  capitalists  in  this  island  who  do  not  as 
a  rule  accept  it  are,  in  truth,  those  great  landlords  who  are 
the  principal  object  of  modern  attack.  It  is  assumed  as 
beyond  proof  that  the  rapid  increase  of  business,  the  great 
accumulation  of  wealth,  is  a  good  per  se  —  good  for  the 
capitalist,  good  for  society.  No  account  is  taken  of  the  busi- 
ness ruined,  of  the  workmen  thrown  out  of  employment,  of 
the  overproduction,  of  the  useless,  mischievous,  rotten  trade 
created,  and  of  all  the  manifold  evils  scattered  broadcast 
amongst  the  producers  and  every  one  within  range  of  the  work. 


4o8  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

It  is  enough  to  have  made  business,  to  have  accumulated 
wealth,  without  coming  within  the  grasp  of  the  law. 

Here,  then,  is  the  all-sufficient  source  of  industrial  mala- 
dies. We  have  come,  in  matters  industrial,  to  treat  duty  to 
others,  and  duty  to  society,  as  only  to  be  found  in  duty  to 
self.  If  all  employers  were  as  thoughtful  of  the  general  wel- 
fare of  those  they  employ  as  they  are  now  eager  to  get  the  most 
out  of  them ;  if  all  producers  were  as  anxious  for  good,  sound, 
and  useful  production  as  they  are  for  paying  production;  if 
those  who  lend  money  considered  not  only  the  security  and 
the  interest,  but  the  purpose  for  which  the  money  was  sought ; 
if  those  who  develop  new  works  thought  more  of  the  workers 
than  of  possible  profits,  industry  would  not  be  what  we  see 
it.  In  other  words,  the  solution  of  the  industrial  problem  is 
a  moral,  social,  and  religious  question.  Industry  must  be 
MORALISED  —  infuscd  with  a  spirit  of  social  duty  from  top 
to  bottom,  from  peer  to  peasant,  from  millionaire  to  pauper. 
But  to  moralise  society  is  the  business  of  moralists,  preach- 
ers, social  teachers ;  the  economist  has  but  little  more  to  add, 
and  his  field  is  not  here.  But  here  I  must  pause.  This 
Conference  is  no  place  for  moralising  or  preaching;  neither 
religion  nor  social  science  have  their  pulpits  here.  And, 
for  myself,  anything  I  could  say  I  must  reserve  for  another 
place. 


V 

SOCIALIST  UNIONISM 

(1889) 

The  twenty-five  years  that  had  passed  since  the  writer^ s  essay 
on  Trades-Unionism  in  1865  {No.  II.  of  this  Part  II.) 
had  made  a  great  change  in  the  Labour  world.  The 
growth  of  Marxian  Socialism  in  Europe  reacted  in 
England,  and  the  energy  of  the  Social  Democratic  Federa- 
tion made  its  mark  on  English  politics.  The  great 
Dock  Strike  of  i88g  made  the  public  aware  of  the  pro- 
found change  that  was  slowly  taking  place.  Another 
twenty  years  has  very  nearly  passed,  and  the  movement 
has  gone  forward  on  lines  much  as  the  writer  foresaw  in 
this  Essay  which  appeared  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 

{vol.  xxvL). 

The  most  startling  result  of  the  new  Industrial  move- 
ment was  seen  in  the  enormous  Liberal  majority  at  the 
General  Election  of  igo6,  which  placed  in  the  Cabinet 
one  of  the  prominent  leaders  of  the  Social  Democrats,  who 
had  been  sent  to  prison  for  his  share  in  the  Bloody  Sunday 
riot,  who  led  the  people  down  Piccadilly  and  Hyde  Park, 
and  engineered  the  Dockers^  Strike. 

There  are  signs  to-day  of  the  inevitable  reaction.  The 
bourgeoisie  is  getting  uneasy  at  the  sight  of  real  Social- 
ism in  Parliament  and  at  Elections;  and  the  utter  inco- 
herence of  Karl  Marx^s  dogmas  and  the  anarchic  lan- 

409 


4IO  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

guage  of  many  of  his  noisy  followers  seems  destined  again 
to  separate  middle-class  Liberalism  from  any  present 
type  of  Labour  Socialism  {igo8). 

Within  the  last  few  years  trades-unionism  has  been  trans- 
formed under  the  influence  of  two  main  forces :  —  one  being 
that  profound  social  lever  which  is  vaguely  known  as  So- 
cialism; the  other  being  the  transfer  to  its  side  of  Public 
Opinion. 

Thirty  years  ago,  in  the  fifties,  the  old  orthodox  Economy 
was  dominant;  it  received  the  superstitious  veneration  of 
the  whole  capitalist  class;  and  it  more  or  less  overawed  the 
leaders  of  the  labouring  class.  To-day  the  old  orthodox 
Economy  —  the  Gospel,  or  the  Sophism,  of  Supply  and 
Demand,  absolute  Freedom  for  Individual  Exertion,  and 
so  forth  —  all  this  is  ancient  history.  "We  are  all  Socialists 
now,"  cries  an  eminent  statesman  in  jest  or  in  earnest.  And 
the  jest  has  earnest  in  it,  if  we  take  Socialism  to  mean,  not 
the  substitution  of  some  communistic  Utopia  for  the  old  in- 
stitutions of  Capital  and  Labour,  but  rather  the  infusion  of 
all  economic  and  political  institutions  with  social  considera- 
tions towards  social  ends.  Thirty  years  ago  Socialism  was  a 
mere  outlandish  day-dream.  It  is  now,  in  the  new  vague 
sense,  as  a  modifying  tendency,  a  very  real  force.  And  it 
has  killed  the  old  Targum  about  Supply  and  Demand  — 
the  plain  English  of  which  was  —  "  May  the  devil  take  the 
weakest ! " 

In  the  same  way,  within  thirty  years,  the  enormous  power 
of  Public  Opinion  has  passed  over  to  the  side  of  trades- 
unionism.  In  old  days  a  great  strike  was  invariably  de- 
nounced by  the  combined  force  of  the  cultivated  and  capi- 
talist classes.  The  press,  the  pulpit,  the  platform,  society,  and 
the  legislature  rang  with  menace  and  invective  about  the 


SOCIALIST  UNIONISM  41I 

innate  wickedness  of  all  strikes.  If  here  and  there  a  clergy- 
man, a  professional  man,  a  politician,  or  a  writer  ventured 
to  raise  a  voice  on  behalf  of  the  unions,  he  was  assailed  with 
a  storm  of  ridicule  and  abuse,  and  was  often  boycotted  in  his 
daily  life.  The  well-known  and  most  successful  head  of  a 
certain  college  was  almost  deprived  of  his  office  by  the 
trustees  for  defending  the  unions  in  public.^ 

When  my  name  was  proposed  as  a  member  of  the  Trades 
Union  Commission  of  1867,  the  appointment  was  hotly  op- 
posed as  a  dangerous  precedent;  and  more  than  one  emi- 
nent solicitor  calmly  told  me  that,  if  I  consented  to  serve,  I 
must  expect  to  quit  the  legal  profession.  If  we  sought  to 
justify  a  strike  to  the  public,  we  had  the  greatest  difficulty 
in  getting  a  word  into  the  press  edgewise,  and  a  quiet  state- 
ment of  the  true  facts  was  almost  systematically  suppressed. 
Trades-unionism  was  spoken  of  much  as  we  now  hear  men 
speak  of  Russian  Nihilism;  and  a  strike  was  condemned  in 
the  same  language  in  which  men  now  condemn  the  resort  to 
dynamite.  To  the  last  generation  of  the  educated  and  em- 
ploying classes,  a  strike  had,  indeed,  all  the  elements  of  a 
dynamite  outrage.  It  could  not  raise  wages  one  farthing; 
it  could  only  increase  the  sufferings  of  its  infatuated  partisans ; 
it  could  only  annoy  and  embitter  the  capitalist ;  and  those  who 
abetted  it  were  the  workman's  worst  enemies. 

Things  are  indeed  changed  now.  We  have  just  seen  one 
of  the  greatest  strikes  on  record  carried  to  a  successful  issue 
with,  and  mainly  by,  the  support  and  encouragement  of  the 
public.^  The  press  was  uniformly  fair ;  and,  very  generally, 
aided  the  movement.  No  sooner  were  the  docks  empty 
than  money  poured  into  the  strike  fund,  not  only  from  thou- 
sands of  British  unions  but  from  across  the  seas,  and  from 

*  How  different  to-day  after  the  legislation  of  1907!  (1908). 

*  The  Dock  Strike  of  i88g,  engineered  by  Mr.  John  Burns. 


412  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

the  wealthy  and  the  governing  classes  in  all  directions.  "We 
were  pelted  with  cheques,"  says  the  treasurer,  and  in  a  few 
weeks  upwards  of  ;;^4o,ooo  was  given.  No  Mansion-House 
Fund  in  a  great  national  disaster,  says  John  Burns,  could 
have  been  "responded  to  with  more  extravagant  generosity." 
In  one  memorable  case,  at  least,  a  great  employer  —  Mr. 
Henry  Lafone  —  himself  gave  strike  pay  to  his  own  men, 
when,  under  a  sense  of  social  duty,  they  left  his  works  empty. 
The  Stock  Exchange  raised  a  handsome  sum  towards  the 
fund  in  a  few  minutes.  ^lerchants  and  merchants'  clerks 
cheered  the  strikers  as  they  passed  the  warehouses  in  the 
City.  London  saw,  without  uneasiness  or  ill-will,  50,000 
men  on  the  verge  of  starvation  pass  in  procession  through 
the  streets.  Politicians,  clergymen,  writers,  and  capital- 
ists backed  up  their  demands  with  word  and  with  purse. 
Churches  of  all  creeds,  educational  and  charitable  institu- 
tions, gave  their  help.  tTatholics  and  Salvationists,  Tories 
and  Radicals,  for  once  combined.  The  police  for  once  were 
cheered  by  the  East-End  agitators.  John  Burns  carried 
his  tens  of  thousands  up  and  down,  like  a  Pied  Piper  of 
Hamelin,  amidst  a  sympathetic  world  of  bystanders  —  as  of 
men  bewitched.  The  very  dogs  of  journalism  forgot  to  bark. 
The  East-End  shopkeepers  gave  credit  for  goods.  The 
pawnbrokers  refused  interest,  and  lodging-house  keepers  re- 
fused their  rent.  Finally  a  Lord  Mayor,  a  Cardinal,  a 
Bishop  of  London,  and  some  prominent  politicians,  succeeded 
in  bringing  about  peace  in  this  tremendous  upheaval  of  industry. 
Cardinal  Manning,  whose  part  in  this  matter  shows  out 
the  Catholic  Church  on  its  grandest  side,  a  side  whereon,  as 
Ireland,  Liverpool,  Glasgow,  and  London  can  prove,  it  is 
perhaps  as  much  alive  as  it  ever  was,  declares  that  "since 
the  Cotton  Famine  of  the  North  there  has  been  no  nobler 
example  of  self-command  than  we  have  seen  in  the  last 


SOCIALIST   UNIONISM  413 

month."  "In  the  great  and  extraordinary  movement  just 
ended,"  writes  John  Burns,  ''the  cause  of  labour  has  been 
the  popular  cause  the  whole  world  over."  "The  whole 
East  End,"  he  adds,  "rose  and  stood  up  alongside  of  us." 
"The  greatest  struggle  between  Capital  and  Labour  that 
this  generation  of  Englishmen  has  seen,"  writes  Mr.  Cham- 
pion, "has  ended  in  the  victory  of  the  weaker  side."  "It 
marks  an  epoch  not  merely  in  the  history  of  labour,  but  of 
England  —  nay,  even  of  humanity,"  says  Lord  Rosebery 
in  his  midnight  address  to  the  tram  servants.  And  when 
he  opens  a  meeting  to  consider  the  formation  of  a  new  Union, 
avowedly  as  Chairman  of  the  London  County  Council,  his 
bold  and  sagacious  act,  so  full  of  the  new  spirit  that  animates 
the  citizens  of  London,  is  heartily  approved  by  all  but  the  pro- 
fessional critics  of  the  other  party.  Truly  the  days  are 
changed  for  the  better  since  a  strike  was  treated  as  a  social 
outrage,  and  to  advocate  trades  unions  was  to  be  marked 
as  a  "wild  man." 

We  have  just  witnessed  not  merely  the  greatest  and  most 
rapidly  successful  strike  of  our  time,  but  we  have  seen  an 
epidemic  of  strikes.  There  were  at  one  time,  in  August 
(1889),  100,000  men  on  strike  along  the  riverside.  Hun- 
dreds of  different  trades  took  part  in  it.  Within  a  few  months 
nearly  200  different  trades,  according  to  John  Burns,  have 
gained  an  advance  of  10  per  cent  in  wages  with  a  reduction 
of  hours.  More  than  100,000  new  members  have  been 
enrolled  in  unions.  The  labour  problem  has  become  a 
prime  political  interest.  Statesmen,  editors,  churches,  and 
leagues  put  labour  questions  in  the  front  rank.  Gas-stokers, 
coal-whippers,  sailors,  tram-drivers,  women,  are  forming 
unions.  The  children  in  schools  all  over  the  country  play 
truant  in  strike.  Great  and  stubborn  as  were  the  contests 
maintained  by  the  old  unionism  of  the  last  generation,  the 


414  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

new  unionism  of  to-day  immensely  surpasses  it  in  extent 
and  in  energy.     What  is  the  difference? 

The  old  ideas  about  unions  and  strikes  have  been  entirely 
reversed.  It  used  to  be  an  axiom  that  the  unskilled  labour- 
ers, singly,  stood  almost  no  chance  at  all.  Yet  unskilled 
labourers  have  just  won  in  the  greatest  strike  on  record.  It 
was  a  truism  that  no  great  and  prolonged  strike  could  pos- 
sibly succeed  without  a  solid  union  behind  it.  Yet  here  a 
vast  strike  has  succeeded  without  a  union;  and  the  union 
has  followed,  and  not  preceded  the  strike.  It  used  to  be  held, 
that  where  the  supply  of  labour  is  practically  unlimited,  the 
idea  of  a  strike  is  rank  suicide.  Yet  here,  with  the  whole 
population  of  these  islands  whereon  to  draw  for  unskilled 
labour,  mighty  and  wealthy  companies  have  failed  to  fill  their 
empty  docks. 

The  new  element  is  this.  The  trades  have  stood  by  one 
another  as  they  never  did  before.  The  skilled  workmen 
have  stood  by  the  unskilled  workmen  in  a  wholly  new  spirit, 
and  public  opinion  supported  the  men  as  it  never  has  done 
yet.  In  all  the  thirty  years  that  I  have  closely  studied  the 
labour  movement,  I  have  never  before  known  the  best-paid 
and  most  highly  skilled  trades  strike  out  of  mere  sympathy, 
simply  to  help  the  unskilled,  where  they  had  no  dispute  of 
their  own.  The  skilled  trades  have  often  offered  generous 
aid  in  money  to  other  trades.  But  they  never  have  struck 
work  themselves,  without  asking  or  expecting  any  direct  ad- 
vantage for  the  sacrifice.  In  the  strike  of  the  Dock  labour- 
ers the  whole  brunt  of  the  struggle  lay  in  the  turn-out  of  the 
stevedores,  lightermen,  sailors,  engineers,  and  other  skilled 
men.  It  was  a  general  mutiny,  led  and  commanded  by  the 
sergeants  and  corporals  in  mass.  This  was  the  cause  of  the 
excellent  discipline  and  rapid  organisation  of  the  strikers, 
and  it  was  also  the  ground  of  their  success.    Without  the 


SOCIALIST   UNIONISM  415 

Stevedores  and  other  skilled  officers,  unskilled  labour,  even 
if  it  could  be  found,  would  have  been  useless  in  the 
Docks. 

There  has  been,  then,  through  the  whole  East  End  — 
indeed,  through  the  whole  of  London  and  of  the  kingdom  — 
a  sympathetic  combination  of  workmen  more  rapid  and  more 
electric  than  anything  seen  before.  We  have  witnessed 
what  in  the  continental  jargon  used  to  be  called  the  "soli- 
darity of  labour,"  or  the  "fraternity  of  workmen"  — a  per- 
fectly real  and  very  powerful  force,  when  it  can  be  organised 
and  brought  into  practical  result.  It  simply  means  the  com- 
mon interest  of  all  the  toiling  millions  to  help  each  other 
towards  their  social  improvement.  Now,  the  old  Unionism 
has  often  been  charged  (and  not  without  reason)  with  its 
defects  on  this  side.  The  older  Unions  have  long  been 
afflicted  with  the  tendency  so  often  remarked  in  religious 
sects  which,  after  manfully  resisting  persecution  in  bygone 
times,  have  grown  exclusive,  hide-bound,  retrograde,  and  the 
slaves  of  their  own  investments.  Some  years  ago  (in  1885) 
I  ventured  to  point  out  in  the  Industrial  Remuneration 
Conference  {Report,  p.  437)  that  in  two  generations  Unionism 
has  shown  itself  powerless  to  reach  the  residuum,  or  to  com-  jt 

bine  the  great  average  mass;  that  it  tended  to  sectional  and  ?. 

class  interests;  to  divide  trade  from  trade,  members  from 
non-members;  that  it  accentuates  the  gulf  between  the 
skilled  and  well-paid  artisan  and  the  vast  destitute  residuum. 

The  new  Unionism  is  a  very  different  thing.  It  has  welded 
into  the  same  ranks  skilled  and  unskilled:  it  organises  the 
average  mass  and  takes  charge  of  the  residuum;  it  has 
extinguished  sectional  interests;  and  it  is  not  absorbed  in 
contemplation  of  its  own  cash  balances.  Years  and  years 
ago  we  laboured  to  convince  employers  that  an  established 
Union  was  a  strongly  conservative  pov/er,  that  it  checked 


4l6  NATIONAL   AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

strikes,  and  often  tended  to  prevent  a  rise  of  wages.  The 
minority  report  of  the  Trades  Union  Commission,  1869 
(p.  xxxvi.),  pointed  out  that  the  strongest  and  richest  Unions 
coincide  with  the  greatest  fixity  in  wages  and  hours,  and  the 
fewest  trade  disputes.  In  1883  I  pointed  out  to  the  Notting- 
ham Congress  that  the  great  societies  for  years  past  had  not 
spent  more  than  i  or  2  per  cent  of  their  income  in  strikes. 
The  permanent  officials  of  a  great  Union,  with  an  income  of 
;^5o,ooo,  and  cash  balances  of  twice  or  three  times  that 
amount,  easily  acquire  the  cautious,  thrifty,  contented, 
rest-and-be-thankful  temper  of  a  bank  director  or  a  City 
magnate.  A  famous  old  banker  in  Fleet  Street  was  once 
told  by  a  pushing  bill-discounter  of  the  new  American  type, 
that,  by  a  very  simple  operation,  he  could  easily  add  to  his 
profits  another  ;^2o,ooo  a  year.  "But  I  don't  want  another 
;^2o,ooo  a  year,"  said  the  worthy  old  man.  And  I  knew 
many  a  Unionist  secretary  of  the  old  school  who  firmly  be- 
lieved that  the  subscribers  to  his  society  did  not  want  the 
"tanner,"  and  would  do  no  good  with  it,  if  they  got  it. 

Between  Unionism  of  that  type  and  the  Socialists  there 
has  raged  for  some  years  past  an  internecine  war.  Furious 
accusations  have  been  bandied  about  on  both  sides.  Social- 
ists charged  the  Unions  with  bolstering  up  and  stereotyping 
the  miseries  of  the  present  industrial  system,  by  thinking 
more  of  "superannuation,"  "benefits,"  and  "cash  balances," 
than  of  any  general  improvement  in  the  conditions  of  labour. 
Unionists  charged  Socialism  with  incoherent  raving  about 
impossible  Utopias,  whilst  doing  nothing  practical  to  protect 
any  single  trade.  As  usual,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  force 
in  what  was  said  on  both  sides.  Vague  rant  about  Capital 
as  organised  plunder  buttered  no  man's  parsnips,  and  did  not 
take  ten  seconds  off  the  working  day.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  was  a  poor  consolation  to  the  sweated  waistcoat-hand  to  be 


SOCIALIST   UNIONISM  417 

told  that  the  Amalgamated  Engineers  had  a  quarter  of  a 
million  in  the  bank. 

But  in  the  course  of  the  present  year  Socialism  and  Trades- 
Unionism  have  been  fused;  and  the  new  Unionism  is  the 
result.  At  last  a  modus  vivendi  has  been  found,  with  an 
alliance  offensive  and  defensive  for  the  time  being.  Each 
has  contributed  a  special  element  of  its  own,  and  has  allowed 
a  good  deal  of  its  former  character  to  drop.  Socialism  has 
contributed  its  dominant  idea  of  betterment  all  along  the 
industrial  line,  whilst  borrowing  from  Unionism  its  regular 
organisation  and  practical  tactics  for  securing  a  definite 
trade  end.  Unionism  has  contributed  its  discipline  and 
business  experience,  whilst  dropping  its  instinct  towards 
mutual  insurance  "benefits"  as  the  essential  aim.  And  so 
Socialism  for  the  nonce  has  dropped  attack  on  the  institu- 
tion of  Capital.  The  new  Unions  are  avowedly  trade  socie- 
ties to  gain  trade  objects.  The  new  Socialism  is  bent  upon 
objects  quite  as  practical  as  those  of  any  Trades  Union,  and 
really  the  same.  The  joint  movement  may  either  be  de- 
scribed as  Socialism  putting  on  the  business  accoutrements 
of  a  Trades  Union  —  or  as  Unionism  suddenly  inspired  with 
the  passion  and  aspirations  of  the  Socialists.  The  typical 
secretary  of  the  old  Unionism  would  have  made  a  respectable 
branch  manager  of  a  Joint-Stock  Bank.  The  typical  leader 
of  the  new  Unionism  is  a  powerful  club  orator  who  finds  him- 
self at  the  head  of  a  great  political  movement. 

It  is  simple  justice  to  acknowledge  that  this  fusion  is  the 
work  of  one  man.  It  is  his  work  both  in  original  conception 
and  in  practical  application.  He  fully  grasps  it  in  prin- 
ciple, and  thoroughly  works  it  out  in  act.  Where  many  men, 
both  Socialists  and  Unionists,  have  honestly  given  good  work, 
John  Burns  is  the  one  man  who  is  equally  prominent  both 
as  a  socialist  and  as  a  unionist.     Certainly  no  other  Socialist 

2E 


41 8  NATIONAL  AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

ever  raised  the  wages  of  two  hundred  trades  within  a  few 
months.  And  no  other  Unionist  ever  brought  100,000  men 
into  union  in  the  same  time.  I  have  often  myself  been 
strongly  opposed  to  Mr.  Burns,  and  have  been  opposed  by 
him ;  and  I  daresay  the  same  thing  will  happen  again.  But 
I  cannot,  in  justice,  deny  that  he  has  been  the  head  of  the 
most  extraordinary  labour  movement  of  our  time.  The 
recent  strike,  from  a  simply  strategical  point  of  view,  was 
conducted  with  consummate  skill,  surprising  energy  and 
swiftness.  But  the  ferment  and  passion  which  gathered 
round  it,  and  which  is  still  rolling  on  from  its  impulse,  is  a 
fact  far  deeper  and  more  strange.  A  great  strike  is  at  best 
a  grim,  cruel,  hardening  tussle,  even  when  most  orderly  and 
most  justifiable ;  and  its  anti-social  spirit  but  too  often  rouses 
aversion  in  the  disinterested  public. 

The  strike  of  the  Docks  was  accompanied  with  a  moral 
lift  which  kindled  sympathy  throughout  the  English  world. 
John  Burns  contrived  to  fire  it  with  a  sense  of  social  duty 
as  its  key-note.  He  stood  up  again  and  again  preaching 
about  men's  duty  at  home  and  abroad;  and  the  singular 
hold  which  he  has  won  over  the  masses  is  due  to  the  sense 
that  he  is  regarded  more  as  a  moral  reform.er  than  as  a  strike- 
leader.  The  movement,  as  he  said  himself,  became  more 
like  the  spread  of  a  religion  than  the  demand  of  a  rise  in 
wages.  Mothers  of  new-born  infants  had  them  carried  to 
him  through  the  crowd  that  he  might  put  his  hand  upon  them 
to  bring  luck.  Just  so  I  have  seen  women  in  Italy  bring 
their  children  to  Garibaldi  to  be  blessed.  My  friend  Mr. 
Broadhurst  occasionally,  I  believe,  expounds  the  Word,  but 
I  do  not  think  that  such  an  incident  has  ever  befallen  him. 
As  orator,  leader,  teacher,  and  general  in  the  field,  John 
Burns  has  obtained  amongst  the  workers  of  London  an  influ- 
ence much  like  that  which  Gambetta  had  over  the  French 


SOCIALIST  UNIONISM  419 

peasants,  and  by  the  exercise  of  some  of  the  same  gifts. 
Whatever  be  his  gifts,  the  public  and  the  legislature  will,  no 
doubt,  soon  be  able  to  test  them/ 

Right  or  wrong,  full  of  promise  or  full  of  danger,  as  it  may 
be,  the  new  Unionism  is  a  very  great  force.  It  has  already 
produced  the  greatest  upheaval  recorded  in  the  history  of 
modern  industry,  one  which  a  statesman  of  Cabinet  rank  has 
described  as  —  "an  epoch  in  the  history  of  labour  and  of 
humanity."  But  as  yet  we  are  only  in  the  beginning.  There 
are  not  yet  a  million  unionists  in  the  kingdom,  whilst  there  are 
ten  or  twelve  million  workers  of  both  sexes  who  might  be. 
The  new  trades  union  is  a  machine  far  simpler,  easier,  more 
rapidly  organised  than  the  old ;  and  it  can  be  formed  ad  hoc 
for  any  given  occasion.  There  is  thus  an  almost  unlimited 
field  for  its  activity,  now  that  Socialists  have  taken  to  aim  at 
practical  results  by  borrowing  the  discipline  and  machinery 
of  a  true  Trades-Union. 

Recent  events  may  serve  to  display  the  incredible  folly  of 
the  party  who  hoped  to  crush  out  Unionism  at  the  time  of  the 
Royal  Commission  in  1869.  They  proposed  compulsory 
legislation  to  divide  every  union  fund  into  a  separate  trade 
fund  and  a  separate  benefit  fund  {Report,  p.  cxiii.).  As  the 
minority  pointed  out  (p.  Ixi.)  this  would  merely  force  the 
Unions  to  devote  a  large  proportion  of  their  resources  to 
strikes,  and  take  away  from  the  Union  officers  the  strong 
temptation  to  avoid  disputes  in  order  to  accumulate  a  large 
balance.  What  the  enemies  of  the  Unions,  with  suicidal  folly, 
tried  to  compel  the  societies  to  become,  i.e.  mere  trade  soci- 
eties or  fighting  unions  per  se,  that  the  Sociahsts  have  now 
induced  the  societies  to  do  voluntarily,  or  rather  they  have 
founded  new  Unions  to  effect  that  object.     In  the  same  way 

*  As  Cabinet  Minister  to-day,  successful  head  of  a  great  department  of 
state  (1908). 


420  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

the  enemies  of  the  Unions  proposed  to  the  legislature  to 
make  ''picketing"  criminal.  The  recent  strike  has  shown 
us  the  greatest  development  of  picketing  ever  known.  There 
were  5000  "pickets"  maintained  night  and  day,  over  lines 
thirty  or  forty  miles  in  extent,  by  land  and  water;  and  the 
discipline  and  vigilance  of  the  cordon  were  as  exact  as  with 
the  Prussians  at  the  siege  of  Paris.  Without  these  "pickets" 
the  strike  would  have  collapsed  in  a  week.  Yet,  in  spite  of 
the  great  extent  of  the  lines  and  the  desperation  of  starving 
men,  no  outrage  of  any  serious  consequence  was  proved,  and 
the  police  were  not  called  in  to  interfere.  If  "picketing" 
had  been  made  illegal  in  1869,  the  recent  strike  would  have 
been  suppressed  by  the  resort  to  cavalry,  as  they  do  so  con- 
stantly abroad. 

A  brief  review  of  the  recent  strike  is  not  the  place  for  a 
critical  estimate  of  the  new  Unionism  which  carried  the  strike 
through  and  which  has  developed  out  of  it.  We  wait  to  see 
how  the  new  Unionism  intends  to  work.  Its  opportuneness 
and  its  strength,  its  dangers  and  temptations,  are  patent 
enough.  A  Union  having  no  large  weekly  dues,  no  costly 
deferred  benefits,  and  no  complex  voting  machinery,  is  ob- 
viously a  more  handy  and  more  rapid  instrument  to  wield 
than  one  of  the  rich,  endowed,  conservative,  mutual  insur- 
ance Unions.  On  the  other  hand,  experience  has  shown  that 
a  mere  strike  society  has  no  backbone  and  has  no  reserve 
fund  to  meet  a  lock-out.  For  years  the  unskilled  trades  have 
been  forming  temporary  unions  which  soon  die  out,  become 
insolvent,  or  encourage  foolish,  abortive  strikes.  A  union 
with  a  splendid  balance,  with  benefits  "up  to  the  chin,"  and 
one  or  two  shillings  a  week  in  subscriptions,  is  apt  to  get  as 
timid  of  change  as  "the  old  lady  in  Threadneedle  Street." 
A  Union  which  is  a  mere  fighting  Club  soon  exhausts  itself 
in  defeats,  and  disgusts  those  who  put  their  trust  in  its  prom- 


SOCIALIST  UNIONISM  421 

ises  and  who  gave  their  money  to  its  blunders.  The  perma- 
nent success  of  the  new  Unionism  still  remains  to  be  proved 
by  results ;  for  it  will  depend  on  the  judgment  and  self-con- 
trol the  new  leaders  can  show.  They  have  shown  an  energy, 
a  swiftness,  and  a  burning  social  enthusiasm  which  have  long 
been  unknown  in  the  rich  established  Unions;  and  they 
have  thereby  seized  a  grand  advantage  in  a  favourable  state 
of  the  Labour  Market.  But  they  will  suffer  terrible  reverses, 
if  they  ever  come  to  think  that  energy  and  fervour  will  avail, 
when  the  economic  conditions  of  the  Labour  Market  are 
dead  against  them. 

What  they  have  proved  is  this :  and  it  is  most  important. 
Whereas  it  used  to  be  an  axiom  that  unskilled  workers  in  an 
open  trade  could  not  form  regular  unions  or  sustain  a  pro- 
longed strike,  it  is  now  shown  that  they  can.  It  used  to  be 
thought  that  the  very  poor,  the  casual  labourer,  those  who 
have  no  local  employment  (as  sailors),  and  women,  could 
never  form  a  substantial  union  or  a  serious  strike,  because 
they  could  not  afford  weekly  subscriptions,  had  nothing  to 
fall  back  upon,  and  had  not  the  endurance,  disciphne,  esprit 
de  corps,  and  patience  which  an  obstinate  struggle  demands. 
The  weakness  of  Unionism  was,  that  it  was  only  available 
to  the  skilled  men  in  good  wages,  and  often  injured  rather 
than  helped  the  great  unskilled  mass.  John  Burns  has 
lifted  that  reproach  from  it,  for  he  has  had  the  sagacity  to  see 
that  Unionism  hitherto  has  been  presented  to  the  unskilled 
in  far  too  costly  and  elaborate  a  form ;  and  that  to  win  sym- 
pathy, Unionism  must  take  a  truly  social,  and  not  a  sectional, 
aim.  If  this  new  departure  can  be  maintained,  it  amounts 
to  a  revolution  in  industry. 

The  dead-weight  which  for  generations  has  pressed  upon 
labour  in  London  is  the  fact,  that  for  some  fifteen  or  twenty 
miles  on  both  sides  of  the  Thames  there  has  been  a  floating 


422  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

population  in  irregular  employment,  of  casual  habits  and 
migratory  bent.  It  was  like  a  great  leak  in  the  bottom  of 
the  ship.  East  London  was  always  growing  bigger,  and 
the  greater  the  demand  for  labour,  the  larger  grew  the  swarm 
of  casual  labourers.  The  great  centre  of  disturbance  was 
the  Docks.  From  the  peculiar  conditions  of  the  case,  and 
under  the  fierce  competition  of  rival  companies,  the  vast 
shipping  business  of  the  Port  of  London  stimulated  the 
accumulation  along  the  riverside  of  a  mass  of  labour  under- 
paid, irregularly  employed,  immensely  over-stocked,  and 
under  the  incessant  competition  of  numbers,  at  the  mercy 
of  the  pay-master.  Often  and  often  have  I  heard  in  Union- 
ist meetings  indignant  appeals  against  workmen  "being 
treated  like  dock-labourers."  It  was  the  familiar  instance 
of  the  lowest  stage  of  industrial  oppression. 

A  new  system  is  now  to  begin.  May  his  "tanner"  benefit 
the  dock-labourer !  But  of  far  more  importance  to  him 
than  his  "tanner"  is  the  mitigation  of  his  successive  hours, 
of  the  irregular  turns  in  his  labour,  of  all  mere  casual  hour- 
work.  And  above  all  important  to  him  is  the  knowledge 
that  he  can  now  defend  himself  by  combination,  that  he  is 
just  as  capable  of  discipline,  of  organised  resistance,  and 
of  brotherly  confidence  in  man  to  man,  as  is  the  Associated 
Miner  or  the  Amalgamated  Engineer.  The  grand  result  of 
the  Dock  Strike  is  this :  —  the  traditional  gulf  between 
"skilled"  and  "unskilled"  labour  has  ceased.  The  new 
Unionism  has  fused  them  into  one. 

But  the  new  Unionism  would  not  have  done  much  if 
Public  Opinion  had  not  gone  over  to  its  side.  Thirty  or 
forty  years  ago  the  whole  weight  of  English  literature  and 
current  opinion  backed  up  Capital  always,  and  opposed 
Labour  everywhere.  The  Reform  agitation,  the  Chartist 
movement,  the  year  1848,  the  books  of  Carlyle,  Kingsley, 


SOCIALIST  UNIONISM  423 

Maurice,  Ruskin,  and  the  later  writings  of  Mill,  shook  the 
orthodox  gospel.  But  in  the  main  the  press,  Parliament, 
and  society  teemed  with  calumny  of  Unionism  and  all  its 
works.  The  great  strikes  of  1S5 1-2-3  ^^^  1858-9  pro- 
duced a  deep  impression.  But  the  first  systematic  attempt 
to  judge  Unionism  fairly  was  made  by  the  remarkable  Com- 
mittee of  the  Social  Science  Association,  which  published 
its  Report  in  i860.  On  that  Committee  of  thirty-two  may 
be  seen  the  names  of  twelve  Members  of  Parliament,  four 
subsequent  Ministers  (including  H.  Fawcett,  W.  E.  Forster, 
and  George  S.  Lefevre),  five  civil  servants  of  the  Crown, 
and  twelve  men  of  letters  and  of  science.  That  book  was 
the  starting-point  of  honest  study  of  the  practical  labour 
problems.  Then  came  the  Royal  Commission  of  Trades 
Unions  in  1867-8-9,  when  the  extravagant  proposals  of  the 
economic  pedants  were  baffled  by  the  steady  good  sense  and 
the  popular  sympathies  of  two  peers  —  Lord  Wemyss  and 
Lord  Lichfield. 

Of  course  the  transfer  of  political  power  effected  in  the 
various  Reform  Acts  of  the  last  twenty  years  has  exerted  a 
profound  silent  revolution.  And  the  fact  that  the  workmen 
are  now  the  depositaries  of  power  has  forced  the  rich  to 
listen  to  their  demands  with  a  hearing  entirely  new.  Along 
with  a  recasting  of  our  whole  political  system  into  a  demo- 
cratic form,  there  has  gone  during  the  last  twenty  years  an 
immense  movement  in  social  philosophy  and  social  politics. 
The  Commune  in  France,  the  land  struggle  in  Ireland,  the 
growth  of  Socialism  on  the  Continent,  the  teaching  of  Karl 
Marx,  Henry  George,  Mill,  Comte,  and  those  whom  each 
of  these  have  influenced,  have  continually  broken  up  the 
old  economic  purism,  the  gospel  of  laissez-faire  and  unlim- 
ited licence  to  individual  selfishness.  Along  with  these 
have  worked  an  immense  body  of  organised  movements, 


424  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

with  many  different  schemes  and  with  widely-divergent 
creeds,  such  as  the  Salvation  Army,  Toynbee  Hall,  Newton 
Hall,  the  Social  Democratic  Federation,  the  Land  Nation- 
alisation Societies,  and  all  the  other  agrarian  movements 
in  Ireland,  Scotland,  Wales,  and  England,  with  Guilds, 
Leagues,  and  Societies  innumerable ;  such  enquiries  as  those 
of  the  Industrial  Conference  of  1885,  Mr.  Charles  Booth's 
Analysis  of  Labour  in  East  London,  1889,  the  Trades  Union 
Annual  Congress,  and  all  the  various  types  of  Christian 
Socialism  that  are  weekly  preached  in  Church  and  Chapel. 

Socialism  in  any  systematic  or  definite  form,  as  a  scheme 
for  superseding  the  institution  of  Capital,  has  not  as  yet  in 
my  opinion  made  any  serious  way.  At  least  I  know  of  no 
coherent  scheme  for  eliminating  individual  ownership  of 
property  which  can  be  said  to  have  even  a  moderate  following 
of  rational  and  convinced  adherents.  The  enthusiasts  who, 
here  and  there,  put  forth  such  schemes  are  not  really  under- 
stood by  those  whom  they  get  to  listen  to  them.  But  So- 
cialism, as  meaning  the  general  desire  to  have  all  the  arrange- 
ments of  society,  economic,  legislative,  and  moral,  controlled 
by  social  considerations  and  reformed  to  meet  paramount 
social  obligations  —  this  kind  of  Socialism  is  manifestly  in 
the  ascendant.  Such  Socialism,  I  mean,  as  is  found  in  Henry 
George's  powerful  book  called  Social  Problems,  where  we 
have  his  view  of  the  problem  apart  from  his  sophistical 
"remedy."  The  old  satanic  gospel  of  laissez-faire  is  dead: 
and,  in  the  absence  of  any  other  gospel  of  authority,  a  vague 
proclivity  towards  Socialism  comes  to  the  front. ^ 

Whatever  name  we  give  it,  a  settled  conviction  has  grown 
up  in  the  conscience  of  serious  men  of  all  schools,  that  society 
in  its  present  form  presses  with  terrible  severity  on  the  whole 

*  Twenty  years  have  made  a  great  difference  in  this  as  in  other  things. 
But  I  am  not  disposed  to  make  a  very  different  estimate  now  (1908). 


,  SOCIALIST   UNIONISM  425 

body  of  those  who  toil  in  the  lowest  ranks  of  labour.  And 
from  Bismarck  and  the  Pope  downwards  all  who  bear  rule, 
and  all  who  teach,  are  coming  to  feel  that  society  is  in  a 
very  rotten  state  whilst  that  continues.  We  are  all  waking 
up  to  see  (what  many  of  us  have  been  preaching  for  years) 
that  it  will  not  do,  and  must  be  mended  or  ended.  Hence 
when  100,000  men  along  the  riverside  rose  up  to  protest 
against  their  casual  employment  and  their  miserable  pay, 
the  world  very  generally,  both  of  rich  and  poor,  thought 
that  they  were  right,  and  gave  them  encouragement  and 
help.  People  knew  something  definite  about  the  East  End 
and  London  Labour.  The  Mansion-House  Committees, 
the  House  of  Lords  Committee  on  Sweating,  the  Royal 
Commission  on  the  Housing  of  the  Poor,  the  Industrial 
Conference  of  1885,  the  experiences  of  Beatrice  Potter,  the 
studies  of  Charles  Booth  and  his  friends,  and  all  that  for 
years  has  been  said  and  done  in  Toynbee  Hall,  Bedford 
Chapel,  Newton  Hall,  the  Working  Men's  College,  the  Hall 
of  Science,  the  City  Temple,  and  a  thousand  platforms, 
pulpits,  and  clubs  —  had  made  men  think  and  given  them 
matter  for  thought.  Public  opinion  has  passed  over  to  the 
side  of  the  labourer;  and  when  he  made  his  effort,  public 
opinion  helped  him  to  success. 

There  are  lessons  enough  for  every  one  in  what  has  just 
happened.  The  Socialist  of  the  Karl  Marx  School  may 
reflect  how  sterile  a  thing  Socialism  has  proved  all  these 
years  that  it  has  been  raving  out  its  fierce  conundrums  about 
the  wickedness  of  private  property,  and  how  solid  are  the 
results  to  be  won  when  it  consents  to  enter  on  a  practical 
business  bargain.  The  violent  assailants  of  Trades  Union- 
ism may  reflect  that  they  have  done  nothing  practical,  until 
they  resorted  to  Unionism  themselves  and  adopted  its  famil- 
iar tactics  and  its  well-tried  machinery.     The  old  Unionist 


426  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

may  reflect  that,  in  forty  years  past,  the  conventional  Union- 
ism has  proved  utterly  powerless  to  effect  what  in  a  few 
weeks  two  or  three  prominent  Socialists  have  done.  The 
men  who  grow  hoarse  in  declaiming  about  the  selfishness 
and  brutality  of  the  middle  classes  may  think  of  the  solid 
assistance  they  had  from  the  middle  classes  in  sympathy 
and  in  money.  And  the  middle  classes,  who  were  wont 
to  regard  the  East-End  labourer  as  a  feckless,  or  dangerous 
loafer,  may  ponder  on  the  discipline,  honesty,  endurance, 
and  real  heroism  which,  in  defence  of  what  they  knew  to 
be  a  just  cause,  so  many  thousands  of  the  poorest  of  the 
poor  have  shown. 

The  Socialist  with  a  system  and  the  impatient  reformer 
generally  have  often  turned  with  mockery  from  all  reliance 
on  public  opinion  and  from  any  such  doctrine  as  "the  morali- 
sation  of  industry."  When  they  have  been  told  that  — 
"  the  true  socialism  is  this :  the  use  of  Capital  must  he  turned 
to  social  objects,  just  as  Capital  arises  from  social  combina- 
tion^^: —  when  it  has  been  preached  to  them  that  "industry 
must  he  moralised  by  opinion,  not  recast  by  the  State  —  mor- 
alised by  education,  by  morality,  by  religion^'  — the  Socialist 
with  a  system  and  the  impatient  reformer  goes  off  with  a 
laugh  or  a  sneer.  Well !  but  this  is  what  has  just  happened. 
Public  Opinion  has  been  changed,  and  it  has  worked  great 
results.  Capital,  to  a  certain  extent,  has  been  moralised, 
and  Industry  also  has  been  moralised.  The  very  poor  have 
been  taught  to  feel  self-respect  and  self-reliance,  to  bear 
much  for  a  common  cause,  to  practise  self-denial  for  a  social 
benefit.  The  rich  have  been  taught  to  Hsten  with  more 
sympathy  to  the  poor,  and  to  know  themselves  as  responsible 
for  the  sufferings  of  those  they  employ.  What  has  happened 
is  a  great  lesson  to  rich  and  poor,  to  employers  and  employed, 
in  the  imperishable  and  paramount  force  of  Social  Duty 


SOCIALIST   UNIONISM  427 

I 

in  the  long  run.    The  immediate  results  are  not  very  great.  j 

But  it  is  a  beginning:    and  much  may  come  of  it.     In  the  \ 

meantime,   the  persistent  appeal  to  the  public  conscience  ! 

on  moral  and  social  grounds  has  done,  what  trades  union-  '■ 

ism  per  se  has  failed  to  do  in  forty  years,  and  what  all  the  \ 

schemes  for  confiscating  private  Capital  and  nationalising  I 

private  property  have  only  succeeded  in  hindering  and  delay-  ; 

ing  being  done.  i 


VI 
MORAL   AND   RELIGIOUS   SOCIALISM 

(1891) 

From  the  foundation  of  Positivist  centres  by  Dr.  Congreve  in 
i86q,  the  writer  and  his  colleagues  had  continually  pre- 
sented the  industrial  theories  of  Auguste  Comte  on  the 
platform  and  the  press.  As  President  of  the  Positivist 
Committee  down  from  the  year  iSyg,  he  consistently 
maintained  the  same  views  in  a  series  of  lectures,  and 
especially  in  the  Annual  Address  which  he  invariably 
delivered  on  New  Yearns  Day.  The  following  Discourse 
was  part  of  that  given  by  him  at  Newton  Hall  on  Janu- 
ary I,  i8gi. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  address  here  printed 
is  merely  an  extract;  simply  part  of  a  course  of  propa- 
ganda which  extended  over  more  than  thirty  years.  It  is 
obviotisly  a  sketch  —  or  brief  summary  of  principles.  If 
it  be  asked  in  what  way,  by  what  agencies,  and  under 
what  religious  ideal,  any  Moral  and  Religious  So- 
cialism could  be  ultimately  based  in  practice,  the  answer 
is  to  be  found  in  the  entire  synthesis  of  Positivist  Ethic 
and  religion  —  which  has  been  the  inspiration  of  the 
writer's  whole  active  life,  and  the  underlying  idea  of  this 
book  and  his  other  works  (igoS). 

It  is  now,  I  think,  for  the  sixth  year  in  succession  that  I 
have  tried  to  direct  attention  to  the  growth  of  SociaHsm  in 

428 


MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS   SOCIALISM  429 

England,  and  I  will  treat  it  more  in  detail  on  this  occasion. 
With  the  general  aim  and  idea  of  Socialism,  Positivists,  of 
course,  are  in  hearty  sympathy.  With  almost  every  word 
of  its  criticism  on  the  actual  industrial  condition  of  Europe, 
with  its  indignant  rejection  of  the  pedantic  formulas  of  the 
old  Plutonomy,  we  entirely  concur.  With  its  main  principle 
that  all  material  wealth  is  the  common  product  of  society 
and  labour,  and  is  never  a  merely  individual  creation,  we 
are  wholly  in  agreement.  With  its  repudiation  of  absolute 
rights  of  Property,  and  its  assertion  of  the  paramount  claims 
of  Society  to  dispose  of  all  that  which  could  have  no  exist- 
ence but  for  Society  itself,  we  cordially  join.  Positivism  is, 
in  a  large  and  true  sense  of  the  word,  itself  an  organised 
Socialism.  Its  whole  scheme  of  life,  of  education,  and  of 
industry  is  essentially  a  mode  of  socialism  —  but  socialism 
with  a  difference.  And  that  difference  is,  that  Positivism 
is  a  complete,  universal,  and  religious  socialism  —  not  a 
socialism  limited  to  material  products.  It  is  a  socialism 
founded  on  social  science  and  inspired  by  religion. 

There  is  no  paradox  in  this.  From  the  Positivist  point 
of  view,  the  current  Socialism  is  essentially  right  in  idea, 
so  far  as  it  goes;  but  it  is  limited  and  incomplete.  It  does 
not  carry  the  idea  half  far  enough.  The  Socialists  around 
us  fill  the  air  with  denunciations  of  the  cruelty  of  Capital, 
of  the  disinherited  state  of  the  labourer,  of  the  miserable 
pittance  which  his  severest  labour  can  bring.  Most  true ! 
and  heartily  do  we  join  in  these  outcries.  But  it  is  not 
enough.  There  is  appalling  cruelty  in  men  and  women 
who  have  no  capital.  Many  a  parent,  many  a  child,  many 
a  neighbour,  makes  life  a  burden  to  those  whom  they  control 
or  affect.  Those  who  possess  physical  strength  often  cruelly 
abuse  it ;  those  who  are  rich  only  in  the  love,  care,  and  con- 
sideration which  are  lavished  on  them,  cruelly  waste  these 


430  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

precious  gifts.  Those  who  have  any  form  of  power,  those 
who  have  rare  gifts  of  intellect,  learning,  or  peculiar  resources, 
often  most  selfishly  hoard  or  squander  their  store. 

The  poor  are  shamefully  excluded  from  the  laden  tables 
of  the  Commonwealth;  but  they  are  excluded  also  from 
education,  from  knowledge,  from  art,  from  cultivation, 
from  a  thousand  things  which  those  who  have  them  prefer 
to  keep  to  themselves.  Selfishness,  and  anti-social  misap- 
propriation of  the  common  store  of  humanity,  are  not 
things  confined  to  material  products ;  nor  will  any  rearrange- 
ment of  material  products  extinguish  them.  The  institu- 
tions and  habits  that  cluster  round  our  Family  Life,  the 
appliances  of  civilised  life,  the  common  knowledge  of  our 
generation,  the  arts,  the  sciences,  the  manners  and  courtesies 
of  life  —  are  equally  the  product  of  Society,  as  much  as  are 
factories  or  railways,  and  they  are  often  most  selfishly  abused 
or  personally  misappropriated  to  the  interest  of  particular 
individuals.  The  cry  of  the  Socialist,  that  the  material 
things  produced  by  all  should  not  be  appropriated  by  the 
few,  is  most  true.     But  it  is  only  a  part  of  the  truth. 

All  that  Socialists  urge  of  the  injustice  of  the  social  arrange- 
ments whereby,  when  the  owner  of  a  coal-mine  sets  a  thou- 
sand men  to  dig  in  the  pit,  at  the  end  of  twenty  years  he  has 
amassed  a  great  fortune  whilst  the  thousand  men  have  nothing 
but  their  worn-out  bodies  and  limbs  —  all  this  is  unanswer- 
able; it  is  unjust,  and  indeed  intolerable.  We  are  wholly 
with  them  when  they  cry  that,  come  what  may,  it  must, 
and  shall  be  changed  to  a  more  humane  arrangement  of 
Society.  But  the  Socialist  puts  it  on  far  too  narrow  a  ground 
when  he  makes  the  claim  of  the  pitmen  entirely  rest  on  right. 
It  is  a  confused,  discredited,  and  illusory  basis,  is  that  of 
right.  Legal  right  we  know :  which  means  simply  what  the 
dominant  body  in  each  state  which  controls  its  legislation. 


MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS   SOCL\LISM  43 1 

chooses  from  time  to  time  to  enact.  And  we  know  what 
under  democratic  suffrages  legal  rights  are  now  in  England, 
or  in  France,  or  in  America,  democratic  republics  as  they 
too  are.  But  right,  apart  from  law,  is  a  mere  quicksand, 
torn  to  pieces  by  scores  of  clear  reasoners,  a  mere  rag  of 
the  silly  Rousseauism  of  the  last  century. 

The  lecturer  at  the  street-corner  appeals  to  right,  by 
which  he  means  what  he  would  like  to  see  done.  But  trained 
minds  know  too  well  that  right  is  a  mere  phrase  to  juggle 
with,  without  a  shadow  of  sound  philosophic  basis,  indeed 
without  a  trace  of  consistent  meaning.  If  Stradivarius 
makes  a  violin;  and  Beethoven  composes  a  sonata;  and 
Joachim  plays  it  on  the  instrument  —  what  are  the  rights 
of  Stradivarius,  Beethoven,  and  Joachim  respectively  in 
the  money  which  people  pay  to  hear  the  performance? 
Every  one,  from  a  musician  to  a  doorkeeper,  would  differ 
as  to  the  shares  of  the  three.  And  who  could  answer  so 
ridiculous  a  question  —  except  by  saying  that  the  rights 
.  of  the  instrument-maker,  the  composer,  and  the  player  were 
what  each  might  agree  to  allow  to  the  others  ?  Just  so ! 
rights  are  an  absolutely  insoluble  dilemma,  except  on  the 
basis  of  free  contract.  And  free  contract  is  just  the  system 
which  the  plutonomists  now  vaunt  as  the  eternally  fair  sys- 
tem, the  system  under  which  in  England,  in  Scotland,  in 
Ireland  to-day,  all  the  cruelty  and  oppression  is  done.  In 
other  words,  to  appeal  to  right  is  either  to  appeal  to  law  as 
it  is,  or  else  to  appeal  to  the  same  legerdemain  of  phrases, 
under  which  the  most  savage  oppression  by  Capital  is  worked 
on  the  present  system. 

The  relations  of  man  to  man  in  a  highly  developed  society 
are  infinitely  complex,  and  elude  everything  but  a  sound, 
searching,  and  scientific  philosophy  of  human  nature  and  of 
the  social  organism.    And  do  the  Socialists  of  whom  we  hear 


432  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

most  pretend  that  they  have  any  such  philosophy  worthy  of 
the  name  ?  The  Socialism  which  we  preach  here  does  rest 
on  such  a  philosophy,  based  on  universal  history,  on  a  study 
of  the  human  character,  and  an  exhaustive  survey  of  all  the 
faculties  and  the  wants  of  the  human  body  and  the  human 
soul.  Here  we  rest  the  claim  of  the  labourer  to  a  full  share 
—  not  merely  in  that  which  his  hands  have  made  —  but  in 
all  things  which  his  neighbours  and  fellow-citizens  have  — 
their  knowledge,  their  thought,  their  skill,  their  refinement, 
their  wisdom  and  strength,  — on  the  indefeasible  duty  of  all 
to  co-operate  in  the  great  social  combination  from  which 
all  they  have  is  ultimately  derived  and  to  which  they  owe 
every  faculty  of  their  nature. 

There  was  a  memorable  saying  of  the  last  generation: 
Property  has  its  duties  as  well  as  its  rights.  But  our  view 
of  Property  is  this :  The  rights  of  Property  mean  a  concentra- 
tion of  social  duties.  Our  Socialism  rests  on  Duty  not  on 
Right.  Duty  is  always  plain;  Right  is  a  verbal  mystifica- 
tion, A  man  can  always  and  everywhere  do  his  duty.  He 
seldom  can  get  his  supposed  rights  without  trampling  on 
the  rights  of  others.  Men  wrangle  incessantly  as  to  rights. 
They  easily  agree  as  to  duties.  The  performance  of  duty 
is  always  an  ennobling,  a  moral,  a  religious  act.  The  strug- 
gle for  rights  calls  out  all  the  passions  of  self  and  of  combat. 
The  curse  of  humanity  is  selfishness,  the  interests,  the  lusts, 
the  pride  of  self.  And  we  are  now  told  to  find  the  blessing 
of  humanity  in  constant  struggle  for  rights  —  which  can 
mean  nothing  but  a  deeper  absorption  in  self. 

Unhappily  in  the  current  language  of  Socialists  we  too  often 
miss  two  important  elements  which  enter  into  all  products, 
material  or  intellectual,  but  which  are  usually  completely 
left  aside.  These  are  first:  the  enormous  part  played  in 
every  product  by  the  society  itself  in  which  it  is  produced, 


MORAL   AND   RELIGIOUS   SOCIALISM  433 

the  past  workers,  thinkers,  and  managers,  and  the  social 
organism  at  present,  which  alone  enables  us  to  produce  at 
all.  An  ocean  steamship  could  not  be  built  on  the  Victoria 
Nyanza  nor  could  factories  be  established  on  the  banks  of 
the  Aruwhimi.  No  one  in  these  discussions  as  to  "Rights 
of  Labour"  seems  to  allow  a  penny  for  government,  civil 
population,  industrial  habits,  inherited  aptitudes,  stored 
materials,  mechanical  inventions,  and  the  thousand  and  one 
traditions  of  the  past  and  appliances  of  civil  organisation, 
without  which  no  complex  thing  could  be  produced  at  all. 
And  they  entirely  leave  out  of  sight  posterity.  That  is  to 
say,  Socialist  reasoners  are  apt  to  leave  out  of  account  Society 
altogether.  And  Society,  that  is  the  Social  Organism  in  the 
Past  plus  the  Social  Organism  of  the  moment,  is  some- 
thing entirely  distinct  from  the  particular  workmen  of  a  given 
factory  or  pit,  and  indeed  has  interests  and  claims  quite 
opposed  to  theirs.  Society,  which  Socialists  ought  to  be  the 
very  last  to  forget,  is  the  indispensable  antecedent,  and  very 
largely  the  creator,  of  every  product. 

A  second  element  in  production  which  is  left  out  of  sight 
is  the  material,  plant,  and  capital  employed  in  the  product, 
the  organisation  of  the  entire  business,  and  the  mental  crea- 
tion of  the  common  work.  We  often  hear  capital  and  plant 
spoken  of  as  if  they  grew  in  the  fields,  or  fell  down  from  the 
sky,  or  as  if  they  were  mere  bits  of  luxury,  like  a  park  or  a 
yacht,  which  rich  men  were  bound  to  lend  to  poor  men  who 
want  them.  But  who  made  capital,  or  plant,  or  factories, 
or  yards,  and  docks,  ships,  and  engines,  but  other  working- 
men  who  have  to  live  out  of  their  labour,  and  who  cannot 
transfer  the  results  of  their  labours  without  securing  their 
own  livelihood?  Socialists  talk  as  if  the  yarn  spun  in  a 
cotton  mill  was  entirely  produced  by  the  labour  of  the  spin- 
ners; and  they  say  the  mill  and  the  machinery  ought  to 

2F 


434  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

belong  to  the  state.  But  the  mill  and  the  machinery  are  the 
result  of  the  labour  of  many  more  men  than  the  spinners, 
working  many  years.  The  capitalist  (so  called)  is  simply 
the  man  who  has  advanced  them  their  means  of  living  all 
this  time.  Suppose  the  vampire  capitalist  suppressed.  How 
is  the  state  going  to  support  the  builders  and  engineers  and 
pitmen,  who  build  the  mill  and  forge  the  machinery,  and 
dig  the  coal,  except  by  taking  half  the  wages  from  the  spin- 
ners as  taxes?  This  seems  an  odd  device  for  increasing  the 
wages  of  the  workmen. 

Again.  Who  made  the  cotton-spinning  business?  Who 
created  the  complex  trade  relations  without  which  the  mill 
would  stand  idle  for  want  of  orders  ?  Who  calculates  quan- 
tities, profits,  prices,  rise  and  fall  of  markets,  and  the  intricate 
and  delicate  organisation  of  a  paying  concern?  Who  but 
the  mill-owner  or  his  predecessor  in  title,  and  one  or  two  skilled 
experts  trained  from  childhood  to  this  very  difficult  work. 
Socialist  lecturers  sometimes  say,  "Of  course,  the  rights  of 
management  will  be  guaranteed."  But  this  is  a  very  off- 
hand way  of  shunting  the  question.  The  mills  which  cover 
the  bare  hillsides  and  glens  of  Lancashke  and  Yorkshire, 
the  docks  of  Liverpool,  or  of  London,  the  pits  of  Durham 
and  Northumberland  did  not  grow,  and  sink  themselves. 
They  were  as  completely  created  by  the  genius  and  resolu- 
tion of  particular  men  as  the  locomotive  was  invented  by 
Stephenson  or  the  art  of  prmting  by  Gutemberg.  Manage- 
ment indeed !  That  is  a  ridiculously  easy  way  of  putting  it. 
You  cannot  hire  a  manager  for  these  things.  A  great  busi- 
ness needs  its  general  as  completely  as  an  army.  The  battle 
of  Waterloo  would  never  have  been  won  without  Wellington. 
Nor  would  St.  Petersburg  have  existed  without  Peter  the 
Great,  nor  Berlin  without  Frederick.  Imagine  Prussians  or 
Russians  hiring  a  manager  to  create  their  nation  or  found 
their  capitals. 


MORAL   AND   RELIGIOUS   SOCIALISM  435 

In  all  these  discussions  men  too  often  forget  altogether  the 
indispensable  part  of  the  organising  mind  —  without  which 
most  undertakings  would  never  exist  at  all,  or  would  be 
doomed  to  failure.  The  continual  disasters,  and  at  best 
the  very  trifling  success  of  those  undertakings  which  in  the 
last  thirty  years  have  been  started  and  carried  on  by  the 
workmen  themselves,  form  the  best  evidence  of  this.  And 
the  one  or  two  cases  in  which  a  perceptible  profit  has  been 
made  are  those  in  which  the  market  already  existed,  and  the 
whole  conditions  of  the  trade  were  simple  and  notorious. 
There  is  no  case  on  record  of  a  body  of  workmen  creating  a 
new  market,  or  founding  an  original  enterprise. 

Still  more  completely  forgotten  is  the  moralising  power  of 
capital  when  it  is  directed  under  real  social  impulses  and  in 
a  spirit  of  genuine  social  obligation.  The  best  and  most 
useful  qualities  called  out  in  human  nature  are  incapable  of 
actmg  without  freedom  in  the  disposal  of  material  power  in 
some  form,  and  some  kind  of  authorised  appropriation  of 
material  things :  —  limited  and  modified  it  may  be,  but  not 
entirely  suppressed.  The  domestic  life  of  the  simplest  family 
would  be  impossible,  if  they  had  not  even  a  room  they  could 
call  their  home,  not  a  bit  of  furniture,  not  a  picture,  or  a 
book,  not  a  chair,  nor  a  bed,  which  they  could  reasonably 
expect  to  occupy  the  next  day.  No  man  could  feel  himself 
a  free  and  independent  citizen  if  he  could  not  call  his  boots, 
or  his  shirt,  or  his  hat  his  own ;  no  man  could  work  at  his 
best,  if  he  could  not  look  to  keeping  the  same  set  of  tools  in 
his  own  bag. 

If  room,  bed,  plates,  cups,  knives  and  forks,  clothes,  tools, 
books,  and  every  material  thing  were  served  out  to  citizen 
No.  7695,  every  morning  from  the  public  stores,  men  would 
feel  themselves  in  a  prison  or  a  barrack,  and  the  noblest  and 
most  powerful  qualities  of  citizenship  would  be  destroyed. 


436  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

If  no  man  could  look  to  reap  the  corn  which  he  had  sown, 
or  to  plough  next  year  the  same  field  which  he  farmed  last 
year,  no  practical  farming  could  be  done  at  all,  and  the 
farmer  would  feel  himself  to  be  a  slave  or  a  convict.  What 
is  it  that  forces  all  reasonable  Socialists  to-day  to  accept 
appropriation  for  all  such  domestic  and  personal  concerns, 
though  obviously  on  the  strict  theory  of  Socialist  right  a  man 
has  no  more  right  to  a  bed,  or  a  cot  which  he  did  not  make, 
but  bought  in  the  market,  than  a  capitalist  has  to  a  mill,  or 
a  ship,  which  he  bought  and  did  not  make  ?  On  the  abstract 
theory  of  rights,  that  things  only  belong  to  those  who  make 
them,  a  man's  coat  belongs  not  to  him,  but  to  the  farmer 
who  grew  the  wool,  and  the  weaver  who  made  the  stuff,  and 
the  tailor  who  cut  it  out  and  sewed  it  together.  We  know 
that  no  reasonable  Socialist  pushes  abstract  theory  so  far. 
That  is  to  say,  reasonable  Socialists  surrender  the  doctrine 
of  rights,  for  the  sake  of  social  convenience  and  by  mere 
force  of  human  nature. 

It  is  a  question  of  degree  where  the  line  of  appropriation  is 
to  be  drawn.  Every  one  agrees  that,  if  all  kinds  of  appropria- 
tion of  Capital  were  absolutely  barred  by  law,  society  would 
soon  revert  to  a  state  of  primitive  barbarism.  We  can  all 
see  that  appropriation  of  home,  of  domestic  appliances,  of 
clothes,  books,  tools,  of  farms,  workshops  and  the  like,  is 
indispensable  to  the  best  activity  of  human  life.  Most 
Socialists  would  add  some  stock  of  money  or  money's  worth, 
for  few  would  be  ready  to  face  so  complete  a  barrack  system, 
that  a  man  would  have  to  apply  to  the  board  for  an  order, 
if  he  wished  to  change  his  house,  or  take  his  family  for  a 
holiday.  Here,  we  are  prepared  to  carry  the  principle  fur- 
ther, and  say :  —  that  limited  and  qualified  appropriation  of 
farms,  of  mills,  of  factories,  of  ships  and  the  material  instru- 
ments of  production  is  not  only  indispensable  to  anything 


MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  SOCIALISM  437 

like  adequate  production,  but  is  alone  the  means  of  calling 
out  the  exercise  of  the  finest  forces  of  human  nature,  of 
activities  without  which  life  would  be  mean  and  dull  indeed. 

In  the  shameful  misuse  of  Capital  which  is  so  common 
around  us,  and  in  the  cynical  selfishness  with  which  the  rights 
of  Capital  are  usually  asserted,  we  hear  nowadays  incessant 
outcries  about  the  crimes  of  Capital,  and  next  to  nothing 
about  the  indispensable  services  of  Capital  to  Society.  The 
outcry  is  indeed  abundantly  justified.  But  the  services  which 
Capital  renders  to  Society  are  quite  as  real  and  quite  as  far- 
reaching  ;  though  Capitalists  themselves  are  usually  too  blind 
or  too  arrogant  to  assert  them,  and  though,  in  the  obsequious 
deference  that  we  now  show  to  the  popular  cry  of  the  hour, 
few  social  reformers  will  venture  to  murmur  a  good  word 
for  the  social  utility  of  Capital  in  principle.  Indeed,  unless 
Capital  can  show  itself  in  a  more  social  attitude,  or  unless 
social  philosophy  can  prove  its  necessity  on  better  grounds 
than  those  of  the  obsolete  laws  of  Plutonomy,  it  is  far  from 
impossible  that  the  institution  itself  may  be  shaken  to  its 
foundations,  and  suffer  a  temporary  dissolution.  If  it  can- 
not reform  itself  in  time,  that  is  perhaps  the  only  thing  that 
could  happen.  The  institution  will  of  course  reconstruct 
itself  rapidly  again,  and  it  may  be  hoped  on  broader  founda- 
tions and  with  a  nobler  spirit.  But  in  the  interval,  frightful 
disasters  would  be  the  portion  of  our  complex  industrial 
system ;  widespread  misery  to  the  point  of  starvation  would 
befall  our  people ;  and  a  staggering  blow  would  be  delivered 
to  the  intellectual,  material,  and  moral  progress  of  civilisation. 

Capitalists  themselves  are  usually  unconscious  of  the 
immense  benefits  which  they  really  confer  on  society,  whilst 
they  imagine  themselves  to  be  exerting  nothing  but  thrift, 
prudence,  and  honourable  ambition.  Without  the  energy 
and  ability  which  only  can  secure  industrial  success,  the 


438  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

undertakings  they  direct  would  be  disastrous  failures,  and 
workmen  would  everywhere  be  thrown  out  of  employment. 
Without  the  passion  for  accumulation  which  makes  a  capital- 
ist what  he  is,  products  would  be  consumed  as  fast  as  they 
were  made,  and  no  accumulation  would  exist.  Without 
accumulation,  society  would  come  to  a  standstill,  and  at 
the  first  turn  of  bad  times  or  a  succession  of  bad  seasons,  the 
people  would  everywhere  be  deprived  of  the  means  of  living. 
We  hear  much  about  the  immense  profits  which  capitalists 
make ;  but  no  one  ever  speaks  of  the  enormous  drains  on 
capital  which  in  bad  times  they  bear  in  silence. 

The  working  masses  know  nothing  about  these  huge,  pro- 
longed, and  alarming  losses,  which  the  capitalist  himself  is 
too  prudent  to  disclose  to  any  one  but  his  lawyer  and  his 
banker.  He  struggles  on  with  courage  and  tenacity,  as  if  he 
were  making  a  profit ;  and  often  as  not,  he  saves  the  ship  at 
last.  In  the  meantime  his  workmen  are  being  paid,  some- 
times year  after  year,  out  of  the  accumulated  savings,  just 
as  if  the  business  were  still  running  at  a  profit.  If  there 
were  no  capitalist,  and  the  concern  were  managed  by  public 
meetings  of  those  who  work  in  it,  the  following  results  would 
arise  (i)  The  profits  in  good  years  would  be  consumed  as 
they  were  made,  and  no  accumulation  to  speak  of  would  be 
formed ;  (2)  the  instability  of  management  by  meeting  would 
lead  to  speedy  ruin;  (3)  the  publicity  involved  in  public 
management  would  be  destructive  to  business;  (4)  in  bad 
years,  the  workers  in  meeting  assembled  would  never  submit 
to  the  reduction  in  salaries  required  to  meet  losses,  and 
would  never  have  the  tenacity  to  face  a  long  succession  of 
losses  and  reduction :  a  panic  would  arise,  and  the  business 
would  be  broken  up. 

If  the  "business"  were  the  property  of  the  state,  and  if 
the  management  were  that  of  a  Government  department. 


MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS   SOCIALISM  439 

what  is  there  to  show  that  it  would  be  managed  more  liber- 
ally than  the  Dockyards,  Government  factories,  of  the  Post 
Office,  in  all  of  which  we  hear  the  loudest  outcries  of  tyranny, 
which  are  often  said  to  be  types  of  Public  Sweating  ?  Social- 
ism involves,  in  order  to  give  it  a  fair  chance,  an  entire  recon- 
struction of  our  whole  social  system  and  all  our  principles  of 
public  life.  Quite  so.  That  is  our  point.  Socialism  offers 
no  such  fundamental  social  regeneration.  Positivism  does. 
And  by  the  time  the  social  reconstruction  is  effected,  it  will 
be  found  that  anti-Capitalist  Socialism  is  no  longer  needed. 
Capital  acts  as  a  reservoir  does,  which  in  seasons  of  drought 
keeps  a  city  supplied  with  water  till  the  streams  begin  again 
to  flow.  It  is  created  by  the  peculiar  aptitude  for  manage- 
ment shown  by  a  few  individuals  having  a  genius  for  that  kind 
of  work.  It  is  maintained  by  the  passion  for  accumulation 
urging  special  natures  to  submit  to  great  efforts  and  to  resist 
immediate  temptations.  But  this  genius  for  business,  this 
instinct  of  accumulation,  and  this  dogged  tenacity  of  purpose 
are  comparatively  rare.  Ninety-nine  in  every  hundred  have 
not  got  these  qualities,  or  have  not  got  them  in  special  degree 
and  in  due  combination.  The  hundredth  man  is  a  born 
capitalist,  or  manager  of  capital;  and,  as  surely  as  a  born 
painter  will  paint  and  a  born  singer  will  sing,  he  will  accumu- 
late and  maintain  the  accumulations,  if  you  offer  him  the 
chance  and  give  him  a  free  hand.  But  to  suppose  that  you 
can  hire  him  to  do  this  work  at  so  much  a  week,  or  for  board, 
lodging,  and  clothing,  without  pocket-money  or  luxuries  of 
any  kind,  is  a  foolish  and  ignorant  assumption.  Nor  is  it 
less  foolish  to  suppose  that  he  will  do  his  work  as  well,  if 
you  do  not  give  him  a  free  hand  at  all,  but  have  him  up 
before  the  "board"  or  the  shareholders,  and  give  him  his 
orders  week  by  week,  as  if  he  were  merely  your  managing 
clerk. 


440  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

It  is  commonly  said  that  the  example  of  Railways,  Banks, 
and  other  Joint-Stock  concerns  proves  that  it  is  quite  possible 
to  carry  on  vast  business  affairs  on  the  collective  principle, 
with  elected  managers  and  hired  agents.  There  cannot  be  a 
more  transparent  sophism.  These  joint-stock  concerns  are 
not  carried  on  or  managed  by  those  whom  they  employ,  and 
to  whom  they  pay  weekly  wages.  The  directors  are  not 
workmen;  they  have  no  interests  other  than  those  of  the 
shareholders;  both  directors  and  shareholders  all  belong  to 
the  capitalist  class,  not  to  the  labouring  class.  The  whole 
of  the  shareholders,  without  exception,  belong  to  the  few 
who  have  capital,  and  whose  habits  are  all  those  of  the 
capitalist  order.  They  were  all  bred  more  or  less  to  business. 
And  they  practically  trust  the  interests  of  the  concern  to  a  very 
few  selected  directors,  usually  men  of  great  wealth,  who  are 
also  professional  experts.  Not  a  single  person  to  whom  the 
Company  pays  wages  has  a  voice  in  the  management,  either 
directly  or  indirectly.  And  the  whole  concern  is  carried  on 
by  a  few  picked  capitalists,  in  whom  a  larger  group  of  capi- 
talists are  satisfied  to  place  implicit  confidence.  The  con- 
sequence is  that  the  Bank  of  England,  a  Railway,  or  a  Steam 
Ship  Company,  is  carried  on  exactly  in  the  same  way  as  the 
firm  of  Rothschild,  Cunard,  or  W.  Whiteley.  What  is  the 
analogy  between  the  management  of  a  Joint-Stock  Company 
by  a  selected  Board  of  Capitalists,  and  the  management  of 
a  Railway  by  its  own  drivers,  stokers,  guards,  and  porters; 
or  of  an  Ocean  Shipping  line  by  its  own  seamen,  firemen, 
shipwrights  and  labourers?    There  is  no  analogy  at  all. 

The  Socialist  theory  implies  that  business  concerns  are 
to  be  carried  on  or  controlled  by  those  who  do  the  manual 
work,  not  by  men  specially  trained  to  great  affairs.  Does 
any  rational  man  imagine  that  the  stokers  and  navvies  em- 
ployed on  a  Railway  are  likely  to  keep  down  their  own  wages 


MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS   SOCIALISM  44I 

in  order  to  provide  funds  for  a  new  stock  five  years  hence; 
that  a  body  of  ten  thousand  men,  three-fourths  of  whom 
cannot  keep  half-a-crown  in  their  pockets,  are  going  to  think 
of  the  next  generation;  or  that  they  are  likely  to  trust  the 
"Board"  in  the  way  in  which  the  Chatham  and  Dover 
shareholders  trust  Mr.  J.  S.  Forbes  and  have  made  him 
dictator  for  life? 

Working-men  accustomed  to  the  simple  operations  of 
their  own  particular  craft  are  prone  to  imagine  the  conduct 
of  a  business  to  be  an  easy  matter;  and  when  they  manage 
a  co-operative  store  for  the  supply  of  bacon,  flour,  and  jam, 
they  are  told  by  some  silly  friends  that  they  have  proved 
their  fitness  to  direct  masses  of  accumulated  capital.  It 
is  a  pitiable  delusion.  The  success  of  a  club  to  buy  food 
for  the  members  at  wholesale  prices  can  prove  nothing  of 
the  kind.  They  are  producing  nothing  for  the  public  market, 
nor  are  they  competing  with  individual  capitalists  at  all. 
The  direction  of  a  large  trading  or  manufacturing  concern 
requires  powers  of  will,  of  decision,  of  insight,  of  intuition, 
only  given  to  some  men  out  of  many,  and  only  brought  to 
perfection  by  the  training  of  a  life.  The  qualities  required 
in  a  successful  man  of  business  are  somewhat  like  those 
required  by  a  successful  general  in  the  field.  And  it  would 
be  as  idle  to  expect  that  Armstrong's  Gun  Factory,  the  Great 
Western  Railway,  or  Cunard's  Packet  Line  could  be  success- 
fully run  by  public  meetings  of  the  founders,  stokers,  sailors, 
or  labourers  they  employ,  as  it  would  be  to  expect  that 
Wellington's  campaigns  could  have  been  won  by  councils 
of  war  elected  by  universal  suffrage  throughout  his  army. 

The  scheme  of  Socialism  implies  something  quite  different 
from  management  by  a  '  Board.  '  A  "  Board,"  such  as 
we  know,  consists  of  capitalists,  and  they  do  not  divide  profits 
amongst  themselves.     Unless  workmen  employed  at  daily 


442  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

wages  are  to  have  control  of  the  profits,  Socialism  can  mean 
nothing.  Its  proposal  is  to  put  the  distribution  of  the  profits 
into  the  control  of  the  manual  workers  alone.  What  then 
would  happen?  The  workers,  who  have  no  formed  habits 
of  accumulation  (for,  if  they  had,  they  would  not  be  work- 
men), would  divide  amongst  themselves  the  utmost  possible 
farthing  of  profit.  The  concern  would  be  left  without  due 
reserves,  and  the  growth  of  capital  would  be  arrested.  When 
Socialists  talk  of  the  ''state,"  they  mean  nothing  but  the 
decisions,  from  day  to  day,  of  the  masses  of  workmen  in 
democratic  assemblies. 

The  gain  per  cotiira,  we  are  told,  would  be  that  the  sums 
now  personally  consumed  by  the  capitalist  would  be  saved. 
It  is  quite  true  that  many  capitalists  —  let  us  say  most 
capitalists  —  in  the  absence  of  any  real  control,  social, 
moral,  or  religious  —  do  now  selfishly  and  shamelessly  con- 
sume disproportioned  shares  of  the  profits.  Their  reckless 
egoism  may  yet  ruin  the  very  institution  of  property  itself; 
and  it  certainly  forms  the  greatest  danger  by  which  property 
is  threatened.  But,  however  morally  evil  and  publicly 
scandalous  their  selfish  ostentation  may  be,  it  is  not  socially 
so  injurious  as  it  looks  at  first  sight.  Even  wanton  luxury 
in  personal  expenditure  by  a  large  employer  of  industry 
consumes  but  an  insignificant  part  of  the  gross  returns  of 
his  business;  and  it  forms  often  but  a  trifling  fraction  of 
what  he  pays  in  weekly  wages.  A  large  employer  consumes, 
we  will  say,  ;^5ooo  per  annum,  when  he  pays  in  wages  at 
least  ;^ 1 00,000.  If  the  whole  of  his  expenditure  were  de- 
voted to  increase  wages,  they  would  only  be  raised  is.  in 
the  pound.  The  workman  who  receives  2gs.  would  then 
receive  21s.  And  as  things  now  stand,  we  know  too  well 
where  the  extra  shilling  would  go. 

Against  this  must  be  set  the  prospect  that,  on  the  Socialist 


MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS   SOCIALISM  443 

theory,  not  one  man,  but  at  least  a  thousand,  would  be 
tempted  to  consume  the  profits  year  by  year  "up  to  the 
hilt" ;  and  that,  it  must  be  allowed,  for  the  best  of  all  reasons 
—  to  provide  bread  for  their  children.  As  a  body,  they 
would  be  without  the  intense  passion  for  accumulation 
which  makes  a  man  a  capitalist,  and  without  which  no  busi- 
ness could  be  carried  on  long.  The  world  sees  the  wanton 
and  selfish  expenditure  of  which  capitalists  are  too  often 
proud.  But  it  sees  nothing  of  the  silent  indefatigable  ac- 
cumulation which  goes  on  alongside  of  the  waste.  Now 
the  accumulation  on  the  whole  is  far  more  extensive  and 
of  more  importance  than  the  waste.  It  is  very  often  made 
under  intensely  selfish  motives:  but  society  gains  equally, 
whatever  be  the  motives. 

Under  the  present  system  of  Capital,  accumulation  is 
secured,  be  it  well  or  ill,  and  usually  it  is  not  well.  It  is 
perhaps  true  that  the  accumulation  is  far  too  rapid,  too 
spasmodic,  and  often  ill  judged.  It  ought  to  be  an  accumu- 
lation far  more  regular,  more  cautious,  and  more  open  to 
general  social  aims.  But  it  is  secured.  And  accumulation 
is  the  condition  precedent  of  social  well-being  and  of  civilisa- 
tion itself.  But,  under  the  Socialist  scheme,  all  accumula- 
tion would  be  left  to  depend  on  the  votes  of  those  who,  ex 
hypothesi,  have  no  turn  for  accumulation  at  all,  who  under 
the  pressure  of  daily  needs  could  not  be  induced  to  provide 
for  the  future,  who  have  no  training  in  business,  and  who 
would  be  open  to  all  the  motives  which  are  wont  to  play 
upon  popular  impatience. 

Under  such  a  state  of  things,  we  may  look  forward  to  an 
industrial  chaos  and  material  collapse,  such  as  Europe  has 
not  seen  since  the  Early  Middle  Ages.  A  stoppage  of  neces- 
sary accumulation  would  mean  what  the  absence  of  all 
reservoirs  would  mean  in  a  season  of  drought.     Production 


444  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

would  everywhere  be  paralysed;  business  would  cease; 
and  consequently  wages  would  not  be  paid.  It  is  difficult 
to  see  how  famines  on  a  gigantic  scale  could  be  averted. 
For,  even  if  the  property  of  the  rich  were  confiscated  and 
divided,  it  would  not  feed  millions  of  workmen.  The  parks, 
mansions,  furniture,  hot-houses,  gardens,  horses,  and  car- 
riages of  the  capitalists  would  neither  feed  nor  clothe  the 
poor;  and  in  the  midst  of  a  universal  material  crash,  they 
would  be  neither  useful  nor  saleable.  At  present,  our  thirty 
millions  of  people  buy  food  from  abroad  with  the  cotton, 
iron,  coal,  ships,  woollens,  and  so  forth  which  they  make  or 
raise.  They  cannot  make  cotton,  iron,  ships,  and  so  forth 
as  men  can  dig  up  potatoes,  nor  without  enormous  accumu- 
lated funds  to  provide  them  with  costly  machinery,  and  to 
pay  the  wages  during  the  long  interval  that  must  elapse 
between  digging  up  the  coal  in  the  pit  and  the  receipt  of 
payment  from  the  foreigner  for  the  manufactured  iron. 
And  if  the  workmen,  in  deference  to  a  specious  theory, 
choose  to  destroy  the  very  sources  of  accumulation,  the 
inevitable  result  must  be  —  a  prolonged  era  of  starvation, 
quite  appalling  in  its  severity  and  in  its  extent. 

There  remains  all  the  wide  field  of  the  intolerable  personal 
tyranny  which  any  scheme  of  Socialism  inevitably  involves. 
We  hear  little  now  on  this  side  of  the  question;  because 
the  elaborate  codes  for  the  regulation  of  human  life,  so 
common  in  the  early  years  of  the  century,  have  long  become 
obsolete  and  forgotten.  The  despotism  of  Socialism  does 
not  so  much  alarm  people  now,  simply  because  Socialism 
now  is  presented  in  a  thoroughly  vague  and  inorganic  form. 
If,  as  was  said  half  in  jest  and  half  in  earnest,  "we  are  all 
Socialists  now,"  it  is  also  true  that  Socialism  now  means 
anything  or  everything.  Many  people  fancy  they  are 
Socialists  when  they  only  desire  to   see  some  well-meant 


MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS   SOCIALISM  445 

Bills  for  the  protection  of  workmen  passed  by  Parliament. 
Legislation  about  hours  of  labour,  the  state  purchase  of 
railways  and  docks,  model  farms  and  lodgings  maintained 
by  taxes,  and  the  like  —  all  this  is  a  mere  playing  at  Socialism. 
I  read  through  that  aesthetic  but  hazy  work  called  Fabian 
Essays,  without  finding  more  than  half-a-dozen  really 
Socialist  proposals,  or  more  than  one  real  Socialist  writer. 

But  if  Socialism  is  to  reorganise  Industry,  it  must  mean 
the  systematic,  stern,  and  universal  suppression  of  private 
capital  and  wealth  by  law.  There  is  one  eccentric  apostle 
of  this  creed,  who  seems  to  combine  with  it  the  suppression 
of  the  Family,  and  of  most  other  institutions  of  civilised 
man.  If  Socialism  is  really  to  regenerate  industry,  it  must 
abolish  capital,  wages,  property  in  all  forms,  and  it  can 
only  do  so  by  law.  The  serious  Socialists,  of  times  when 
Socialism  was  not  an  aesthetic  fad,  but  a  Social  Gospel  of 
consuming  passion,  all  devised  elaborate  schemes  for  forcing 
men's  lives  into  cast-iron  formulas,  in  order  to  keep  capital 
in  the  state  of  a  proscribed  and  illegal  institution.  They 
were  quite  right.  Unless  capital  be  sternly  and  universally 
suppressed  by  law,  unless  the  family  life,  the  personal  life, 
the  social  life  of  all  citizens  equally  be  prescribed  by  law, 
as  Lycurgus,  Baboeuf,  Fourier,  and  Owen  projected  it, 
Capital  will  maintain  itself  and  make  Socialism  a  mere 
impracticable  experiment.  If  there  is  to  be  Socialism  at 
all,  serious  enough  to  recast  the  conditions  of  labour,  it 
must  be  an  inexorable  scheme  of  legal  compulsion :  affecting 
us  all  in  our  homes,  in  our  social  habits,  and  in  the  entire 
disposal  of  our  personal  life. 

What  an  appalling  prospect  of  tyranny  does  this  open 
to  the  vision !  The  development  of  man's  individual 
capacities,  the  moral  beauty  of  domestic  life,  the  progress 
of  science,  of  art,  of  learning,  of  religion  —  all  depend  on 


446  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

a  due  measure  of  individual  freedom.  But  individual 
freedom  is  absolutely  dependent  on  the  free  command  of 
a  certain  amount  of  individual  capital.  A  man  can  now 
devote  himself  to  a  long  career  of  unremunerative  study, 
by  reason  that  he  or  his  parents  may  have  accumulated 
enough  to  maintain  him  in  comfort.  An  artist  can  work 
out  ideas  which  the  public  has  not  learned  to  value,  by 
reason  that  a  few  rich  men  give  him  a  fancy  price  for  pieces 
that  they  like.  A  man  can  devote  himself  to  politics,  to 
education,  to  religious,  social,  or  moral  reformation,  because 
he  has  just  enough  income  to  dispense  with  daily  toil  at  a 
trade.  The  whole  progress  of  civilisation  lies  there :  — 
inventions,  learning,  art,  poetry,  philosophy,  reformation. 

Suppress  capital  and  place  all  accumulations  not  at  the 
free  disposal  of  individuals,  but  at  the  mercy  of  meetings 
or  boards  of  labourers,  and  what  chance  would  there  be  of 
a  student,  a  poet,  or  a  moralist  obtaining  an  order  for  free 
living?  Let  us  imagine  Charles  Darwin,  Alfred  Tennyson, 
Burne  Jones,  or  Thomas  Carlyle  appearing  before  the 
department  of  education  to  ask  for  a  dispensation  from 
labour,  in  order  to  devote  themselves  to  biology,  poetry, 
painting,  or  letters!  They  would  be  driven  out  of  the 
Board-room  as  idle  malingerers.  It  is  sometimes  suggested 
that  the  student,  the  artist,  or  the  teacher  would  be  duly 
supported  by  the  public  appreciation  of  their  merits;  so 
that  a  popular  painter  or  writer  would  immediately  receive 
a  state  pension.  That  is  to  say,  that  art,  science,  literature, 
and  education  would  pass  into  the  hands  of  those  who  best 
could  hit  the  passing  fancy  of  the  untrained  public  of  the  day. 

It  is  quite  needless  to  enlarge  on  the  myriad  forms  of 
t)n:anny  which  true  Socialism  implies,  because  Socialism 
now  presents  itself  only  in  a  disguise  which  might  serve 
as  a  costume  for  a  Court  Ball.     Our  attention  is  not  called 


MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS   SOCIALISM  44^ 

to  the  despotism  of  life  that  true  Socialism  involves,  simply 
because  there  is  now  hardly  any  [true  Socialism  before  us. 
But  it  is  not  the  less  true  that  Property,  or  personal  appro- 
priation of  Capital,  is  the  sole  condition  of  personal  freedom. 
It  is  quite  true  that  the  freedom  is  now  brutally  and  cynically 
abused  by  the  Capitalist,  but  it  remains  true  all  the  same, 
and  is  an  eternal  axiom  of  human  society :  —  without  per- 
sonal appropriation  there  can  he  no  personal  freedom. 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that,  in  the  scheme  of  Socialism 
the  humblest  workman  would  feel  the  despotism  of  the  State 
quite  as  much  as  the  great  capitalist  whom  he  is  to  depose. 
The  poorest  workman  to-day  has  a  certain  amount  of  freedom 
before  him,  when  he  has  got  his  week's  wages  in  his  pocket. 
But  under  a  strict  system  of  Socialism,  he  would  not  be 
free  to  change  his  home,  or  his  residence,  or  his  trade,  or 
dispose  of  his  children,  as  he  chose.  The  simplest  detail 
of  his  life  would  have  to  be  fixed  by  order  of  some  Board. 
Why?  Because  a  man  can  do  nothing  freely  without  some 
sort  of  accumulation.  And,  if  you  suppress  all  accumulation, 
you  render  a  man  as  helpless  as  a  slave.  If  you  suppress 
accumulation  on  principle  you  must  suppress  all  accumula- 
tion —  even   ;^5    in   a    workman's   pocket. 

Thus,  then,  we  come  to  the  conviction  that  Property, 
like  Family,  like  Government,  like  the  separation  of  pro- 
fessions and  functions,  is  a  permanent,  essential,  indispensable 
element  in  all  civilised  societies.  It  has  been  cruelly  per- 
verted and  abused;  it  has  worked  an  enormous  amount 
of  evil;  it  has  aroused  a  great  force  of  just  indignation  by 
its  misdoings.  The  real  answer  is  not  its  annihilation; 
but  its  reformation:  its  complete  regeneration  by  moral 
and  religious,  and  not  by  mechanical  and  legal  agencies. 
Governments  also  have  frightfully  abused  their  powers. 
But  only  Anarchists  ask  us  to  abolish  government,  rather 


448  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS 

than  to  control  it.  The  problem  of  the  future  is  to  change 
the  mode  in  which  capital  shall  be  used,  not  the  persons  by 
whom  capital  shall  be  held.  Appropriation,  in  truth,  is 
the   condition  antecedent  of  all   civilisation. 

Limited  and  qualified  appropriation,  I  say.  For  we 
entirely  agree  that  the  unlimited  and  unqualified  appro- 
priation which  now  passes  current  as  property  in  Capital, 
is  an  anti-social,  inhuman,  and  barbarous  form  of  tyranny. 
Limited  by  whom?  Qualified  by  what?  Limited  by  the 
whole  force  of  public  opinion,  by  law,  and  by  the  voice 
of  the  commonwealth  expressed  in  a  thousand  modes ! 
Qualified  by  religion,  and  a  really  social  education,  by  the 
rise  of  a  new  morality,  and  by  a  set  of  social  institutions 
which  will  impress  on  the  conscience  the  paramount  sense 
of  duty  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  These  modes  of 
economic  reform,  these  types  of  Socialism,  offer  no  new 
resources  from  religion  —  no  education,  no  moral  scheme, 
no  social  institutions  whatever.  They  rely  exclusively  on 
bare  redistribution  in  the  material  things,  on  a  simple  re- 
adjustment in  the  right  to  capital.  The  real  evils  are  moral, 
social,  religious,  and  only  partly  material.  The  deeper 
source  of  the  suffering,  cruelty,  and  oppression  about  us 
lies  in  human  selfishness  —  selfishness  which  takes  as  many 
forms  as  Proteus,  which  is  as  subtle  as  the  serpent  that  be- 
guiled our  first  parents ;  and  which  is  able  to  elude  a  thousand 
laws.  How  are  we  going  to  cure  or  mend  human  selfishness  ? 
For  if  we  leave  this  rampant,  new  laws,  and  bare  material 
reforms,  and  the  shifting  the  limits  of  appropriation,  can 
have  but  a  passing  or  doubtful  result. 

Our  answer  is  plain.  We  believe  that  selfishness  can 
be  cured  only  by  Religion  —  by  a  social  religion,  the  aim 
of  which  is  not  to  land  the  believer  in  Heaven  but  to  reform 
human  nature  upon  earth.     Religion  has  never  fairly  set 


MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS   SOCIALISM  449 

itself  to  that  direct  object,  though  incidentally  it  has  done 
much  to  promote  it,  often  without  intending  it,  and  some- 
times in  spite  of  its  own  dogmatic  precepts.  Once  make 
religion  the  dominant  force  in  human  life,  make  the  sole 
business  of  religion  to  moralise  men,  to  control  self-interest 
and  to  purify  society,  and  we  shall  have  a  power  equal  to 
cope  with  all  extant  forms  of  human  selfishness.  Those 
who  mock  at  our  hopes  that  this,  after  all,  is  the  only  remedy 
against  social  oppression,  have  but  little  true  sense  of  the 
enormous  power  of  a  really  social  religion.  Even  in  its 
forms  of  fictitious  abstraction  and  celestial  dreams.  Religion 
has  been  strong  enough  to  conquer  some  of  the  deepest 
vices  of  our  imperfect  nature,  and  to  stimulate  the  develop- 
ment of  the  sublimest  virtues. 

If  the  tribal  God  of  Israel,  or  the  mythology  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  could  call  out  such  great  qualities  in  the  Hebrew, 
the  Greek,  the  Roman  race;  if  the  passion  for  godliness 
in  Paul  and  his  companions  could  overcome  the  lust  and 
frivolity  of  the  ancient  world;  if  the  Catholic  discipline  at 
its  best  could  so  deeply  transform  the  ferocity  and  turbulence 
of  mediaeval  Europe,  we  need  not  doubt  the  power  of  a  truly 
social  Religion  to  subdue  the,  certainly  less  desperate,  evils 
of  modern  industrial  life.  Human  nature  and  society  both 
have  a  subtle  and  complex  unity,  and  are  only  to  be  radically 
regenerated  by  a  complete  treatment  of  their  needs  as  wide 
as  human  nature  and  society  themselves.  We  must  re- 
generate domestic  life,  personal  life,  moral  life,  social  life, 
political  life,  religious  life,  and  not  manufacturing  and 
trading  life  alone. 

We  need  a  reformed  education,  resting  on  a  scientific 
philosophy,  revised  and  purified  domestic  manners,  a  new 
series  of  social  institutions,  a  reformed  and  new  common- 
wealth.    But   above   all   we   need  a   reformed   Religion  — 

2G 


450  NATIONAL   AND   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS 

social  in  its  origin,  in  its  object,  and  in  its  methods ;  human, 
practical,  and  scientifically  true.  The  religion  of  Humanity 
affords  us  all  this,  and  will  prove  equal  to  the  mighty  task 
of  regenerating  even  our  corrupt  industrial  system,  for  it 
will  have  a  double  aspect :  the  one  spiritual,  the  other  material, 
but  both  entirely  human  and  real.  It  will  be  on  one  side 
of  it  a  social  religion :  on  the  other  side  of  it  a  religious 
Socialism. 


FREDERIC   HARRISON'S 

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artist's  love  of  beauty,  and  a  keen  zest  for  the  joys  of  living.  And  now 
and  again,  in  the  informality  of  his  manner,  he  gives  rein  to  a  whimsi- 
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style  a  pungent  tang  or  a  pleasing  piquancy.  ...  '  Memories  and 
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lover  of  literature,  to  warm  our  hearts  as  one  who  strives  to  be  counted 
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